Patent GB-977474-A (GB)
Title: Tone frequency control means for keyed filtered systems
IPC: H03D1/00
Filed: 1961-07-24
Abstract: 977,474. Frequency control arrangements. COLLINS RADIO CO. July 24, 1961 [Aug. 26, 1960], No. 26666/61. Headings H3A and H4L. In a means for effecting frequency control over an input signal to a keyed filtering system, a resonator arrangement, which comprises either a single resonator or a pair of identical resonators, operates for synchronous periods; a sampling arrangement samples the phase of the signal output of the resonator arrangement at two different times in the case of the single resonator, or simultaneously in the case of the pair of resonators, during each synchronous period, and a means for comparing the sampled phases provides a direct current output whose polarity is dependent on the direction of frequency misalignment between the input signal and the tuned frequency of the resonator system. The invention is applied to control the centre frequency of a digitally modulated tone, which is applied to a keyed filter to improve its signal to noise ratio. The keyed filter is of the type which is gated on and off for each received tone bit, and averages the effect of noise over each bit period. The incoming tone may be either phase or amplitude modulated to carry the digital information, and the description of the invention specifically relates to phase pulse communication systems. It is shown in the Specification that if the centre frequency fn of the input is different to the tuned frequency #0 of the resonator arrangement, then the phase of the ringing output from the resonator will vary throughout the period after the input has been turned off, and the phase difference between two different time samplings within the period will be proportional to the frequency difference between the input frequency and the tuned resonator frequency. In one embodiment of the invention (Fig. 2) time interleaved pulses from a timing clock source 17 occur at sampling times t 2  and t 3  and are passed to the gates 72a and 72b respectively. The pulses must have sufficient duration to ensure that they sample a zero crossing of the output from the resonator. The resonator is keyed on at the time t 1  (in synchronism with the digital information contained in the input signal) and at the time t 2  its output is passed by the gate 72a, to be held in the phase storage circuit 200. At the time t 3  the gate 72b passes a second sample of the resonator output directly to a phase detector 73, whose other input is derived from the output of the phase storage circuit. The detector provides a pulsed direct current output component during the sampling around the time t 3  of amplitude dependent upon the difference frequency (#n -fo) and of polarity dependent upon whether fn is greater or less than fo. The resonator is quenched at the time t 3  by a pulse from the timing clock. A second embodiment (Fig. 3) utilizes two identical high Q resonators 37, 38, equally tuned. An input time is alternately switched between the resonators, each of which is permitted to ring for the ensuing period during which it receives no input tone. A simultaneous sampling of both resonators will involve a different operating point for each, because of their alternate operation, so that a given frequency error causes different phase shifts to exist at a given time in the two resonators. The difference between the two is a measure of the frequency error. A received phase pulse modulated signal A (see Fig. 4) is received at an antenna 10 (Fig. 3) and fed to a radio receiver 11 in which it is heterodyned with a local oscillator signal to give an output signal which is applied to the gates 31 and 32. These gates are switched on and off by the outputs F and G (Fig. 4) provided from the bit synchronous timebase 17, operating as described in Specification 866,632 to provide timed gating pulses in synchronism with the digital bit information. The timebase 17 also provides quench timing pulses D and E to quench the keyed resonators by opening the negative feedback gates 33 and 34 immediately before each drive period. The two resonators 37 and 38 are thus caused to receive inputs alternately, and the outputs are sampled at a time when one has just received an input and the other is about to be quenched. The outputs of the two resonators are as shown in Figs. 4B and 4C. These outputs are fed to a data detector 46 which sorts out the digital information, and are also fed to the gates 61-64 prior to obtaining the required error signal. These gates are opened by timing pulses in such a way that the gates 61, 62 pass the resonator outputs at the end of their ringing period to the lead 65 while the gates 63, 64 pass the outputs obtained from the newly received bit inputs to the resonators to the lead 66. These outputs are as shown in Figs. 4M and 4N. The signals on the leads 65 and 66 are passed through the frequency multipliers 67 and 68 in order to eliminate ambiguities caused by the phase modulated information in the phases to be compared. These multipliers must multiply the frequency by a factor M = 2<SP>N</SP>, where N is the number of channels carried by the selected tone. The signal on the lead 66, before reaching the frequency multiplier, is passed through a phase shifter 69, which is adjusted so that a null output is obtained from the phase detector 71 when fn = fo. When these differ, however, the detector supplies an output signal proportional to the difference, which signal is fed via a sampling gate 72 and an integrator 73 to control the local oscillator frequency in the receiver 11. An alternative arrangement to prevent the polarity of the phase detector output from varying with the modulation is described. The four gates 61-64 are eliminated and the output from the phase detector 71 is fed to two gates, via an inverter in one case, which opens in accordance with the signals on the lines 41 and 42 (Fig. 7, not shown). In a system operating with amplitude modulated pulses the ambiguities caused by phase shift modulators do not occur and a simplified arrangement may be used (Fig. 8, not shown). Specifications 828,781, 828,782, 836,930, 847,538, 871,331 and 935,654 are also referred to.