[time-nuts] Tight-PLL - YOU DON'T NEED TO READ IT IF YOUR FED-UP WITH THE THREAD SO HIT DELETE NOW!

[Steve Rooke]

I think I have found the source of the "integration" issue. I've spent
some considerable time ploughing through as many sources of
descriptions on ADEV, AVAR and the tight-PLL method. I've even tried
looking for the infamous "finite time interval integrator" which seems
to be highly notable by it's complete absence on Google. Well,
eventually the answer struck me directly in the eye, the source of the
integrate issue comes directly down to the original paper that Warren
posted a link for:-

D. Tight phase lock loop method

The second type of phase lock loop method (shown in figure 1.7) is
essentially the same as the first in figure 1.6 except that in this
case the loop is in a tight phase lock condition; i.e., the response
time of the loop is much shorter than the sample times of
interest--typically a few milliseconds. In such a case, the phase
fluctuations are being integrated so that the voltage output is
proportional to the frequency fluctuations between the two oscillators
and is no longer proportional to the phase fluctuations (for sample
times longer than the response time of the loop). A bias box is used
to adjust the voltage on the varicap to a tuning point that is fairly
linear and of a reasonable value. The voltage fluctuations prior to
the bias box (biased slightly away from zero) may be fed to a voltage
to frequency converter which in turn is fed to a frequency counter
where one may read out the frequency fluctuations with great
amplification of the instabilities between this pair of oscillators.
The frequency counter data are logged with a data logging device. The
coefficient of the varicap and the coefficient of the voltage to
frequency converter are used to determine the fractional frequency
fluctuations, yi, between the oscillators, where i denotes the ith
measurement as shown in figure 1.7. It is not difficult to achieve a
sensitivity of a part in 1014 per Hz resolution of the frequency
counter, so one has excellent precision capabilities with this system.

http://tf.nist.gov/phase/Properties/one.htm

The relevant section here is "the response time of the loop is much
shorter than the sample times of interest--typically a few
milliseconds. In such a case, the phase fluctuations are being
integrated so that the voltage output is proportional to the frequency
fluctuations". So what this says is that by incorporating a PLL-loop
filter that has a B/W much wider than the sample time, the phase
fluctuations are integrated into the reference oscillator such that
the control voltage of the tight-PLL now reads frequency which is
unlike the loose-PLL which directly records the phase relationship
between the oscillators. So the term "integrated" here is used a verb
and not a noun, therefore it is an intrinsic function of the design
not a separate process.

Steve
--
Steve Rooke - ZL3TUV & G8KVD
The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once.
- Einstein