Spatial position determination system
AssigneeWi-LAN, Inc.
InventorLon B. Radin
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A system is disclosed that determines a spatial position of a tracker device relative to an object sending a return signal to the tracker. Such a system advantageously maintains phase accuracy between a forward signal from the tracker device and the return signal from the object. The system can include, as part of a tracker device, a reference signal generator, a transmitter, a receiver, and a spatial position computer. The reference signal generator is responsive to and phase-stabilized by a broadcast signal, e.g., a signal received from a commercial AM broadcast transmitter. The transmitter and receiver are both coupled to and phase-stabilized by the tracker reference signal generator. Variations and methods with different advantageous features are also described.
Claims1
A tracker system comprising:
- a transmitter coupled to and phase-stabilized by a reference signal generator;
- a receiver coupled to and phase-stabilized by the reference signal generator and responsive to a return signal from a transponder unit that is coupled via field radiation to the tracker system, which return signal is triggered by a signal from the transmitter;
- a global positioning module to determine the location of the tracker system;
- and
- a spatial position computer coupled to the receiver, the global positioning module and the transmitter, responsive to indicia of a phase relationship between an output signal from the transmitter and a return signal from the transponder and to the location of the tracker system determined by the global positioning module whereby the spatial position computer determines a spatial position of the transponder unit.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.