US 11,743,852 B2
Phase measurements for high accuracy distance measurements
John M. Khoury, Austin, TX (US); Yan Zhou, Spicewood, TX (US); and Michael A. Wu, Austin, TX (US)
Assigned to Silicon Laboratories Inc., Austin, TX (US)
Filed by Silicon Laboratories Inc., Austin, TX (US)
Filed on Nov. 30, 2020, as Appl. No. 17/107,281.
Prior Publication US 2022/0174632 A1, Jun. 2, 2022
Int. Cl. H04W 56/00 (2009.01); H04W 4/02 (2018.01)
CPC H04W 56/0035 (2013.01) [H04W 56/005 (2013.01); H04W 4/023 (2013.01)] 20 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A method for measuring a distance between a first communications device including a first local oscillator and a second communications device including a second local oscillator, the method comprising:
generating N phase values by converting N corresponding samples of a received signal from a Cartesian representation to a polar representation including the N phase values;
unwrapping the N phase values by combining each of the N phase values with a corresponding multiple of 2π to generate N unwrapped phase values, where N is an integer greater than one;
averaging the N unwrapped phase values to generate an average phase value; and
wrapping the average phase value by performing a modulo 2π operation on the average phase value to generate a final phase measurement of the first local oscillator with respect to the second local oscillator.