Highly accurate zero crossings for frequency determination

摘要

The technique to measure the frequency very accurately for electronic warfare (EW) applications, and is simple in hardware, and which can accomplish this goal with a signal with real data (in contrast to complex data). It uses trigonometric identities to compute the location of the zero, which is very precise, but requires the use of an inverse trigonometric function. From these crossings, one can find the frequency very accurately using only one channel of data. The input signal is down converted and digitized with one A/D converter. The digitized data is used to find the zero crossing. The resolution of the zero crossing is limited by the clock cycle. Three uniformly digitized points around a zero crossing are used to find the time for the crossing. The device according to the invention will calculate the frequency very accurately using only one channel of data. This method can be used to measure the angle of arrival in a two antenna configuration with very precise results where the distance between the two antennas does not exceed half the wavelength of the incoming signal.