Michael D Newell

US Patent:

51286807, Jul 7, 1992

Filed:

Oct 31, 1990

Appl. No.:

7/608051

Inventors:

Charles A. Sabato - Crosswicks NJ
Michael S. Newell - Bensalem PA

Assignee:

General Electric Company - East Windsor NJ

International Classification:

G01S 1300

US Classification:

342 60

Abstract:

A range tone system for determining the range between a satellite or spacecraft and a ground station FM modulates one of a 3968 Hz, 283 Hz or 35 Hz range tone onto a 27. 77 Khz range tone. Modulation is accomplished by simultaneously addressing a plurality of PROMs by related clocks. The PROMs are preprogrammed with data representing the 27. 77 KHz tone frequency-modulated by another range tone. Narrow-band filtering recovers the 27. 77 KHz range tone from the received signal, and frequency demodulation coupled with narrowband filtering recovers the lower-frequency tone. The two recovered tones are processed simultaneously to provide both high resolution range information together with ambiguity resolution.