[time-nuts] Very Accurate Delta Time RF Pulse Measurements

[Scott Stobbe]

There was a pic app note on alternate uses for the cap sense block a while
back, not sure it that it will push you into the ps.

On Thursday, 28 July 2016, Jerome Blaha <jblaha at polariswireless.com> wrote:

> Hi Guys,
>
> This is a little outside of time-nuts scope, but not by much.  I'm
> interested in finding the time between two rising edges above a set
> threshold with preferably nS or high ps timing accuracy.  Can this be
> simply done with a few programmed Microchip PICs or with a good short term
> OCXO clock?  The issue I see is that a 10Mhz timing reference with 1 cycle
> difference in time yields 100ns resolution, which is far too large, so
> maybe a PIC can solve this.
>
> This weekend project would be a multi-element antenna array, each with a
> super-fast response log peak power detector fed into several PICs for time
> of arrival.  Whenever a nearby high energy RF pulse is detected, the time
> of arrival between two antenna elements and hence the direction toward the
> TX could be roughly computed.  Some typical log peak detectors have an 8ns
> input pulse response time, so I'm hoping that rise times are similar
> between multiple detectors, negating the delayed response.
>
> There are time of arrival/AoA systems out there with synthetic doppler,
> phased arrays, correlative interferometers, and phase comparators, but it
> would be interesting to accomplish super wideband AoA timing on two rising
> pulses with relatively cheap parts.
>
> Thanks,
>
> -Jerome
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