Patent Application
20160254934
Communications transceivers may utilize numerous architectures to recover data from a modulated carrier signal. These architectures include coherent demodulation, using either intermediate frequency conversion or direct-conversion receivers. Such receivers typically recover or regenerate the communications carrier signal using a phase-locked loop (PLL) and coherent demodulation. Recently, polar receiver architectures have been proposed that extract the modulation phase components from a received modulation signal without using a carrier recovery circuitry. However, the proposed polar receiver architectures and associated signal processing have deficiencies that result in poor performance and high bit error rates (BER). Accordingly, there is a need for improved polar receiver signal processing and architectures.
The accompanying figures, where like reference numerals refer to identical or functionally similar elements throughout the separate views, together with the detailed description below, are incorporated in and form part of the specification, and serve to further illustrate embodiments of concepts that include the claimed invention, and explain various principles and advantages of those embodiments.
Skilled artisans will appreciate that elements in the figures are illustrated for simplicity and clarity and have not necessarily been drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions of some of the elements in the figures may be exaggerated relative to other elements to help to improve understanding of embodiments of the present invention.
The apparatus and method components have been represented where appropriate by conventional symbols in the drawings, showing only those specific details that are pertinent to understanding the embodiments of the present invention so as not to obscure the disclosure with details that will be readily apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art having the benefit of the description herein.
In an exemplary embodiment illustrated in
While some of the embodiments described herein refer to the demodulation of phase-modulated signals, it should be noted that the disclosed embodiments can also be used to demodulate frequency-modulated (FM) signals, based on the mathematical relationship between changes in frequency and changes in phase.
The polar receiver 100 includes an envelope detector 108, which operates to provide a signal representing the amplitude of the modulated radio-frequency signal. The envelope detector 108 may operate using various techniques such as, for example, signal rectification followed by low-pass filtering. The signal representing the amplitude of the modulated radio-frequency signal may be converted to a digital form with an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) 109. In some embodiments, ADC 109 samples the amplitude of the modulated radio-frequency signal at 160 Msps.
The polar receiver 100 is provided with frequency division circuitry 110. The frequency division circuitry has an input for receiving the modulated radio-frequency input signal from the low-noise amplifier 106 and a frequency-divided output for providing a frequency-divided output signal to a trigger input of a time-to-digital converter (TDC) 112. The frequency division circuitry operates to divide the frequency of the input signal by a frequency divisor. In some embodiments, as described in greater detail with respect to
The time-to-digital converter 112 operates to measure a characteristic time of the frequency-divided signal, such as the period of the frequency-divided signal. The time-to-digital converter 112 may operate to measure the period of the frequency-divided signal by measuring an elapsed time between successive corresponding features of the frequency-divided signal. For example, the time-to-digital converter may measure the period of the frequency-divided signal by measuring a time between successive rising edges of the frequency-divided signal or the time between successive falling edges of the frequency-divided signal. In alternative embodiments, the time-to-digital converter may measure a characteristic time other than a complete period, such as an elapsed time between a rising edge and a falling edge of the frequency-divided signal.
In some embodiments, the time-to-digital converter 112 operates without the use of an external trigger such as a clock signal. That is, the time-to-digital converter 112 measures the time between two features (e.g., two rising edges) of the frequency-divided signal rather than the time between an external trigger signal and a rising edge of the frequency-divided signal. Because the start and end of the time period measured by the time-to-digital converter 112 are both triggered by the frequency-divided signal, rather than an external clock signal, the time-to-digital converter 112, is referred to herein as a self-triggered time-to-digital converter.
In the example of
where LSB is the amount of time represented by the least significant bit of the time-to-digital converter. The offset digital time output is thus at or near zero when no shift is occurring in the phase of the frequency-divided signal.
When a phase shift does occur in the modulated radio-frequency signal (i.e., a phase-modulated or frequency modulated carrier signal) this results in a temporary change in the period of the modulated radio-frequency signal, which in turn causes a temporary change in the period of the frequency-divided signal. This temporary change in the period of the frequency-divided signal is measured as a temporary change in the digital time output (and in the offset digital time output). In some embodiments, the offset digital time output is at or near zero during periods when the phase of the modulated radio-frequency signal remains steady, while a shift in the phase of the modulated radio-frequency signal results in the offset digital time output signal briefly taking on a positive or negative value, depending on the direction of the phase shift.
In some embodiments, the receiver 100 includes a digital multiplier 116. The multiplier 116 operates to multiply the offset digital time output by a scale factor K to generate a scaled digital time signal. The scale factor K may be used for example, to convert the offset digital time output signal to a scaled digital time signal that represents an angle (expressed, e.g. in radians) corresponding to a shift in the phase of the original modulated radio-frequency signal. To that end, the scale factor K may be selected as
K=−2πfcLSB
where fc is the frequency of the modulated radio-frequency signal (e.g, a frequency between 2412 MHz and 2484 MHz).
The offset digital time output signal (which may have been scaled in some embodiments) is provided to a digital integrator, implemented in polar receiver 100 using a digital adder 118 and a register 120. The digital integrator generates an integrated time signal. The register 120 may be clocked using the frequency-divided signal, resulting in one addition per cycle of the frequency-divided signal. In embodiments in which the offset digital time output signal represents a change in the phase of the modulated radio-frequency signal, the integrated time signal provides a value that represents the current phase of the modulated radio-frequency signal.
In polar receiver 100, the integrated time signal is sampled using a register 122, which may be clocked by a clock source 124. In some embodiments, the register 122 operates to sample the integrated time signal at 160 Msps, although other sampling rates may alternatively be used.
Alignment logic 126 is provided to provide temporal alignment between the amplitude signal from ADC 109 and the phase signal from register 122, accommodating different processing delays in the generation of the amplitude signal versus the phase signal. The aligned amplitude and phase signals are provided to coordinate rotation digital computer (CORDIC) logic circuit 128. The CORDIC logic 128 is operative to identify in-phase (I) and quadrature (Q) components corresponding to a phase-modulated radio-frequency input signal. The identified in-phase and quadrature components may be used in turn to identify a particular symbol conveyed by the phase-modulated radio-frequency input signal, such as a quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) symbol, using conventional techniques known to those skilled in the art.
Variations on the specific receiver circuit 100 illustrated in
While the frequency division circuitry 110 may be implemented in a variety of different ways, one exemplary structure is illustrated in
The frequency division circuitry 110 may further include a buffer 216 operating as an amplitude limiter. The limiter 216 converts a generally sinusoidal input from the harmonic ILO 214 into a generally square-wave like output that is more amenable to subsequent digital processing. The square-wave like output of the limiter 216 is then provided to a digital frequency divider 218, which may be implemented using one or more D flip-flops or using other known frequency division circuity. The digital frequency divider 218 divides the output of the limiter 216 by a divisor M to generate the frequency-divided signal that is ultimately fed to the self-triggered time-to-digital converter. The divisor M may be, for example 4. Other values may be used depending on the frequency of the modulated carrier as well as the bandwidth/speed capabilities of the time-to-digital converter. The value of the divisor may be selected in view of the carrier frequency to permit use of a power-efficient time-to-digital converter. For example, a divisor of 4 can be used with a carrier frequency of 2.4 GHz, while a divisor of 128 can be used with a carrier frequency of 60 GHz.
It should be understood that variations on the architecture illustrated in
An example of a harmonic ILO used as an injection-locked frequency divider is illustrated in
The self-triggered time-to-digital converter 112 of
In some embodiments, as illustrated schematically in
For ease of illustration, the Vernier time-to-digital converter 512 is illustrated as including only five buffers in each chain, though it should be understood that practical embodiments will generally include many more buffers (e.g., 128 or more buffers). The buffers 514a-e and 516a-e may be implemented using inverters, such as CMOS inverters, for example. The arbiters 520a-f may be implemented using D-registers or other logic elements.
In the embodiment of
It should be noted that alternative structures can be used to implement a Vernier time-to-digital converter, and in some embodiments, time-to-digital converters other than Vernier time-to-digital converters can be used. In some embodiments, a configurable time-to-digital converter may be used, with the time-to-digital converter being configured to measure elapsed time between consecutive rising edges (or consecutive falling edges) of a single input signal.
A demodulation method performed by a polar receiver is illustrated in the flow diagram of
In step 610, the frequency-divided signal is provided to a time-to-digital converter 610, which generates a digital time output representing a period of the frequency-divided signal. The time-to-digital converter used may be a self-triggered Vernier time-to-digital converter. In step 612, a period offset is subtracted from the digital time output to generate an offset digital time output. In step 614, the offset digital time output is scaled using a digital multiplier to multiply the offset digital time output by a scaling factor. In step 616, the offset digital time output is integrated to generate an integrated time signal. The integrated time signal provides a digital representation of the phase of the radio-frequency input signal.
In addition to the steps used to determine the phase of the radio-frequency input signal, one or more additional steps 618 may be used to determine the amplitude of the radio-frequency input signal. These steps may include, for example, signal rectification followed by low-pass filtering and analog-to-digital conversion.
In some embodiments, based on digital signals representing the phase and amplitude of the radio-frequency input signal, the polar receiver operates in step 620 using CORDIC logic to identify in-phase (I) and quadrature (Q) components of a quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) symbol.
In the foregoing specification, specific embodiments have been described. However, one of ordinary skill in the art would appreciate that various modifications and changes can be made without departing from the scope of the invention as set forth in the claims below. Accordingly, the specification and figures are to be regarded in an illustrative rather than a restrictive sense, and all such modifications are intended to be included within the scope of present teachings.
The benefits, advantages, solutions to problems, and any element(s) that may cause any benefit, advantage, or solution to occur or become more pronounced are not to be construed as a critical, required, or essential features or elements of any or all the claims. The invention is defined solely by the appended claims including any amendments made during the pendency of this application and all equivalents of those claims as issued.
Moreover in this document, relational terms such as first and second, top and bottom, and the like may be used solely to distinguish one entity or action from another entity or action without necessarily requiring or implying any actual such relationship or order between such entities or actions. The terms “comprises,” “comprising,” “has”, “having,” “includes”, “including,” “contains”, “containing” or any other variation thereof, are intended to cover a non-exclusive inclusion, such that a process, method, article, or apparatus that comprises, has, includes, contains a list of elements does not include only those elements but may include other elements not expressly listed or inherent to such process, method, article, or apparatus. An element proceeded by “comprises . . . a”, “has . . . a”, “includes . . . a”, “contains . . . a” does not, without more constraints, preclude the existence of additional identical elements in the process, method, article, or apparatus that comprises, has, includes, contains the element. The terms “a” and “an” are defined as one or more unless explicitly stated otherwise herein. The terms “substantially”, “essentially”, “approximately”, “about” or any other version thereof, are defined as being close to as understood by one of ordinary skill in the art, and in one non-limiting embodiment the term is defined to be within 10%, in another embodiment within 5%, in another embodiment within 1% and in another embodiment within 0.5%. The term “coupled” as used herein is defined as connected, although not necessarily directly and not necessarily mechanically. A device or structure that is “configured” in a certain way is configured in at least that way, but may also be configured in ways that are not listed.
It will be appreciated that some embodiments may comprise one or more generic or specialized processors (or “processing devices”) such as microprocessors, digital signal processors, customized processors and field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) and unique stored program instructions (including both software and firmware) that control the one or more processors to implement, in conjunction with certain non-processor circuits, some, most, or all of the functions of the method and/or apparatus described herein. Alternatively, some or all functions could be implemented by a state machine that has no stored program instructions, or in one or more application specific integrated circuits (ASICs), in which each function or some combinations of certain of the functions are implemented as custom logic. Of course, a combination of the two approaches could be used.
Accordingly, some embodiments of the present disclosure, or portions thereof, may combine one or more processing devices with one or more software components (e.g., program code, firmware, resident software, micro-code, etc.) stored in a tangible computer-readable memory device, which in combination form a specifically configured apparatus that performs the functions as described herein. These combinations that form specially programmed devices may be generally referred to herein as “modules.” The software component portions of the modules may be written in any computer language and may be a portion of a monolithic code base, or may be developed in more discrete code portions such as is typical in object-oriented computer languages. In addition, the modules may be distributed across a plurality of computer platforms, servers, terminals, and the like. A given module may even be implemented such that separate processor devices and/or computing hardware platforms perform the described functions.
Moreover, an embodiment can be implemented as a computer-readable storage medium having computer readable code stored thereon for programming a computer (e.g., comprising a processor) to perform a method as described and claimed herein. Examples of such computer-readable storage media include, but are not limited to, a hard disk, a CD-ROM, an optical storage device, a magnetic storage device, a ROM (Read Only Memory), a PROM (Programmable Read Only Memory), an EPROM (Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory), an EEPROM (Electrically Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory) and a Flash memory. Further, it is expected that one of ordinary skill, notwithstanding possibly significant effort and many design choices motivated by, for example, available time, current technology, and economic considerations, when guided by the concepts and principles disclosed herein will be readily capable of generating such software instructions and programs and ICs with minimal experimentation.
The Abstract of the Disclosure is provided to allow the reader to quickly ascertain the nature of the technical disclosure. It is submitted with the understanding that it will not be used to interpret or limit the scope or meaning of the claims. In addition, in the foregoing Detailed Description, it can be seen that various features are grouped together in various embodiments for the purpose of streamlining the disclosure. This method of disclosure is not to be interpreted as reflecting an intention that the claimed embodiments require more features than are expressly recited in each claim. Rather, as the following claims reflect, inventive subject matter lies in less than all features of a single disclosed embodiment. Thus the following claims are hereby incorporated into the Detailed Description, with each claim standing on its own as a separately claimed subject matter.
