Suppression of initial value changes in the dual transponder carrier ranging system for absolute distance measurement

Abstract

The dual transponder carrier ranging system, an enhancement over the dual one-way ranging system, provides high-precision relative distance measurements without imposing stringent time synchronization requirements. However, a critical limitation to its use in absolute distance measurement is the initial value change phenomenon, which manifests as abrupt phase changes after every system restart. Through theoretical analysis, the root causes of this phenomenon are identified as a fractional output-to-input frequency ratio in the frequency synthesizer and a non-integer coherent turnaround ratio. To validate the theoretical analysis, simulations are conducted using Simulink, and experimental verification is performed on an S-band and C-band hardware platform. Both simulation and experimental results demonstrate that configuring both ratios as integers effectively suppresses these abrupt phase changes. These findings establish an integer-ratio design rule that is independent of specific frequency plans, providing a general design guideline for coherent transponder ranging systems intended for absolute distance measurement, as well as a reference for frequency planning in other absolute distance measurement systems of the same kind.

Keywords

Dual transponder / Carrier phase ranging / Absolute distance measurement / Initial value change

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The Authors. Published by Zhejiang University Press Co., Ltd.