Patent ID: 8424384

Claim:
A measurement system comprising: a propagation medium; a propagation tuned oscillator (PTO) coupled to the medium where the PTO facilitates a continued emission, propagation, and detection of one or more energy waves through the propagation medium and where the PTO is configured to select one of continuous wave, pulsed, and pulsed echo modes of operation where the propagation tuned oscillator further comprises; a first multiplexer having a first terminal, a second terminal, third terminal and a fourth terminal; a second multiplexer having a first terminal, a second terminal, a third terminal, and a fourth terminal; a third multiplexer having a first terminal, a second terminal, a third terminal, and a fourth terminal a driver circuit having an input coupled to the fourth terminal of the first multiplexer and an output coupled to the first terminal of second multiplexer and the first terminal of the third multiplexer where the output of the driver circuit is configured to couple to a first location of the propagation medium; a zero-crossing receiver having an input coupled to the second terminal of the second multiplexer and the second terminal of the third multiplexer and an output coupled to the second terminal of the first multiplexer where the input of the zero crossing receiver is configured to couple to a second location of the propagation medium and where the output of the zero-crossing receiver is configured to couple to the input of the driver circuit to form a positive closed-loop feedback path.