Patent ID: 7409026

Claim:
A method for estimating the phase shift of a signal S 1 with a period approximately equal to period Ts with respect to a reference signal S 0 with period Ts, comprising receiving the signal S 1 and starting a capture process including steps of: a) at instants regularly distributed within a first time interval equal to the period Ts, carrying out a sequence of n detections of the state of the signal S 1 , where n is an integer greater than 1, and for each of these detections, increasing a count variable in a sequence of n count variables x 0 , . . . , x n−1 , or leaving said count variable unchanged depending on said state, b) reiterating step a) over one or several other time intervals, each equal to said first time interval, c) stopping the capture process at an end of capture instant t end , d) comparing corresponding values of count variables for adjacent count means, in pairs in said sequence of count variables x 0 , . . . , x n−1 , e) identifying the two adjacent count variables x j and x j+1 with the greatest difference, among the differences between two adjacent variables, where j is an integer, f) calculating the phase shift between S 0 and S 1 .