Method for achieving immediate and accurate automatic frequency tuning
AssigneeSchick Technologies, Inc.
InventorsDavid Schick, Stan Mandelkern, Iouri Kazarov, Leonid Khatutskiy, Valeriy Armencha
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An automatic frequency tuning (AFT) system which can effect immediate and accurate automatic frequency tuning of the local oscillator (LO) of a receiver, in order to achieve a stable intermediate frequency (IF) signal while reducing the power consumption and the cost of the system. In the automatic frequency tuning (AFT) system, an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) converts the intermediate frequency (IF) to a digital value which is sent to a microcontroller. A signal sent from the microcontroller accurately and automatically tunes the local oscillator (LO).
Claims24
A receiver, comprising:
- a mixing circuit adapted to mix an input signal with an internal signal in order to produce an intermediate frequency signal which undergoes signal processing;
- a local oscillator adapted to generate the internal signal;
- an analog-to-digital converter adapted to convert the intermediate frequency signal to a digital signal;
- and
- a microcontroller adapted to determine the internal signal required based on the digital signal, and to send a control signal to the local oscillator which tunes the local oscillator to the internal signal in order to obtain the intermediate frequency signal required.
A method of tuning a local oscillator of a receiver, comprising the steps of:
- receiving and amplifying an input signal;
- mixing the input signal with an internal signal generated by a local oscillator in order to produce an intermediate frequency signal;
- processing the intermediate frequency signal to produce a baseband signal;
- converting the intermediate frequency signal to a digital signal;
- determining the internal signal required based on the digital signal;
- and
- sending a control signal to the local oscillator which tunes the local oscillator to the internal signal in order to obtain the intermediate frequency signal required.
A receiver, comprising:
- a radio frequency amplifier, adapted to amplify an input signal;
- a local oscillator adapted to generate an internal signal;
- a mixing circuit adapted to mix the input signal with the internal signal to generate an intermediate frequency signal;
- an intermediate frequency filter adapted to filter the intermediate frequency signal;
- an intermediate frequency amplifier adapted to amplify the filtered intermediate frequency signal;
- a detector adapted to produce a baseband signal from the amplified intermediate frequency signal;
- an integration circuit adapted to process the intermediate frequency signal output by the detector;
- an analog-to-digital converter adapted to convert the intermediate frequency signal output by the integration circuit to a digital signal;
- and
- a microcontroller adapted to determine the internal signal required based on the digital signal, and to send a control signal to the local oscillator to tune the local oscillator to the internal signal in order to obtain the IF signal required.
A receiver, comprising:
- means for mixing an input signal with an internal signal in order to produce an intermediate frequency signal;
- means for generating the internal signal;
- means for converting the intermediate frequency signal to a digital signal;
- and
- means for determining the internal signal required based on the digital signal and sending a control signal to the means for generating the internal signal for tuning to the internal signal in order to obtain the intermediate frequency signal required.
A receiver, comprising:
- a local oscillator adapted to generate an internal signal;
- a mixing circuit adapted to mix an input signal with the internal signal in order to produce an intermediate frequency signal;
- an analog-to-digital converter adapted to convert the intermediate frequency signal to a digital signal;
- and
- a microcontroller adapted to determine the internal signal required based on a comparison of the digital signal with a required intermediate frequency signal, and to send a control signal to the local oscillator which tunes the local oscillator to the internal signal in order to obtain the required intermediate frequency signal.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.