Patent ID: 11885874
Assignee: SEMICONDUCTOR COMPONENTS INDUSTRIES, LLC
Field: Measurement (Instruments)
Classification: CPC G | IPC G

Claim 12:
13. A method comprising:
generating a chirp signal at a frequency generator at a first time, wherein the frequency generator provides the chirp signal to determine a position of an obstacle;
receiving, at a transmitter amplifier, the chirp signal for transmitting the chirp signal to an acoustic transducer;
providing, by the acoustic transducer, a received input signal to a sensing circuit;
filtering an in-phase portion and a quadrature portion of the received input signal, by a digital filter;
calculating a phase of the received input signal in response to filtered in-phase and quadrature portions;
determining a received input signal frequency slope in response to the phase;
comparing the received input signal frequency slope to a chirp signal frequency slope and detecting an object in response to the received input signal frequency slope being approximately equal to the chirp signal frequency slope; and
determining a distance of the object corresponding to a frequency shift of the received input signal frequency slope and an extrapolated chirp signal frequency slope extended from the generated chirp signal.