Fastand High Precise Time Intervalmeasurementand Its Application

Time interval measurement is the measurement basis of many physicalvariables such as period, frequency and phase. And continuous time intervalmeasurement is also the essentialtechnique for modulation domain measurement.With the development of science and technology, the frequency of the signalunder measurement in themodulation domain measurement raises rapidly, whichmakes the further research on the time interval measurement necessary. Theresearch aims at improving the resolution and speed of time intervalmeasurement. Moreover high-speed precise time interval measurement is widelyapplied to atomic physics, astronomy experiments, aviation and spaceflight, andremote sensing and control, so the improvement of time interval measurementcan accelerate the development in these fields and promote the development ofeconomy.Thisdissertation systematicallysummarizes the current achievement and thefundamental theory of time interval measurement. To improve the resolution oftime interval measurement, it researches on the continuous high-speedsynchronous counter and the time interpolation technologyfor the characteristicsin modulation domain measurement, such as the high-speed and high resolution,and zero-dead-time. In the high-speed synchronous counter aspect, thedissertation analyzes the logic operation depth of three types of counters, andthen proposes the improved zero-dead-time counter design and proposes anamendment coding scheme for the non-binary Systolic counter. In the timeinterpolation aspect, a multi-slope time interpolation method to eliminate theblind measurementspot is presented, and threetypes of vernier time interpolationare also proposed, including dual-vernier interpolation, pipeline interpolation anddigital clock phase shifting interpolation. In addition, a feedback delayinterpolation is proposed according to the attenuation of the event signal in thedelay chain that is composed of passive delay units. In the application of highspeed continuous time measurement, a VXIbus time interval analyzer isdevelopped and the dynamic phase compensation is proposed to improve theperformance of the synchronous serial communication. The major innovative contributions of this dissertation are as follows:1. The binary counters'maximum working frequency reduces as the bitsincrease. To solve the problem, a parallel synchronous counter group modelwiththe relatively prime divisors is proposed according to the reminder theory. Thereminder theory is adopted to derive the formula calculating the parallel countergroup's counting value. The counters in the group work independently and themaximum working frequencies have no relationship with the bits. With thederived formula, the real counting value can be obtained according to thecounters'value. The formula's validity is examined by experiments of the ringcounters and the medium-scaleintegration counters.2. In the delay time interpolation with high resolution, the number of thedelay units is big and the delay time is short. To solve the two problems, thedissertation presents the event and time-base delay method that delay the eventsignal and the time-base through different delay units. When the restrictioncondition is fulfilled, the time interpolation resolution is the difference betweenthe two delay units'delay time and the time measurement resolution improveswithout adding additional delay units. The method is tested by Modelsimsimulation.3. To improve the precision in the ultrasonic distance measurement, thedissertation presents a method of embedding the frequency characteristic into theecho leading edge that takes the FSK ultrasonic as transmitting wave and adoptsthe modulation domain measurement to get the real frequency of the echo. Themethod can precisely position the echo edge and improve the precision of thedistance measurement.The method is tested with experiments.