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

[Attila Kinali]

On Fri, 29 Jul 2016 09:23:02 -0700
Chris Albertson <albertson.chris at gmail.com> wrote:

> Sounds like you want to build something rather then use some
> instruments you can buy.   I've thought a little about this too as I
> want to make a LIDAR to measure distance using a laser pulse.  In my
> case I want both low cost and for the device to be very small and
> light and run off a battery

For this kind of application I would recommend looking into
chips like the TDC1000 (there are multiple in this family, and
other manufacturers have similar chips). They are made exactly for
that kind of application, though with ultrasonic flow measurement
in mind. The timing resolution is high enough that you can build a LIDAR
with <10cm resolution that does consume very litte power.

For higher resolution, I would go for a sinusoidal modulation scheme
and measure the phase difference between the transmitted and received
signal. That should easily give you resolution in the sub-cm range,
but also consumes more power.

			Attila Kinali

-- 
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