1911 results about "Chirp" patented technology

A locator system for tracking the location of individuals in a defined environment is disclosed. The system comprises at least one user identifier, at least one reader, at least one locator station and an identification server. The user identifier includes a long-range transmitter adapted to transmit an identification signal and a short-range passive component having identification information. The reader is adapted to receive the identification signal from the long-range transmitter. The locator station is adapted to read the identification information from the short-range passive component. The identification server is adapted to communicate with the reader and the locator, and has a database associating the identification signal of the long-range transmitter and the identification information of the short-range passive component with a particular user. The identification signal from the long-range transmitter may be an intermittent chirp. The long-range transmitter and the short-range passive component may be mounted on an identification tag, which may be attached to a wrist strap for securing the identification tag to a user's wrist.

Systems, apparatuses, and methods estimate the distance between a player and a ball by transmitting a chirp (sweep signal) to a radio tag located on the ball. During the chirp, the frequency of the transmitted signal is changed in a predetermined fashion. The radio tag doubles the transmitted frequency and returns the processed signal to a transceiver typically located on the player. The currently transmitted frequency is then compared with the received frequency to obtain a difference frequency from which an apparatus may estimate the distance. The apparatus may simultaneously receive the processed signal from the radio tag while transmitting the sweep signal.

A modular, compact and widely tunable laser system for the efficient generation of high peak and high average power ultrashort pulses. Modularity is ensured by the implementation of interchangeable amplifier components. System compactness is ensured by employing efficient fiber amplifiers, directly or indirectly pumped by diode lasers. Peak power handling capability of the fiber amplifiers is expanded by using optimized pulse shapes, as well as dispersively broadened pulses. Dispersive broadening is introduced by dispersive pulse stretching in the presence of self-phase modulation and gain, resulting in the formation of high-power parabolic pulses. In addition, dispersive broadening is also introduced by simple fiber delay lines or chirped fiber gratings, resulting in a further increase of the energy handling ability of the fiber amplifiers. The phase of the pulses in the dispersive delay line is controlled to quartic order by the use of fibers with varying amounts of waveguide dispersion or by controlling the chirp of the fiber gratings. After amplification, the dispersively stretched pulses can be re-compressed to nearly their bandwidth limit by the implementation of another set of dispersive delay lines. To ensure a wide tunability of the whole system, Raman-shifting of the compact sources of ultrashort pulses in conjunction with frequency-conversion in nonlinear optical crystals can be implemented, or an Anti-Stokes fiber in conjunction with fiber amplifiers and Raman-shifters are used. A particularly compact implementation of the whole system uses fiber oscillators in conjunction with fiber amplifiers. Additionally, long, distributed, positive dispersion optical amplifiers are used to improve transmission characteristics of an optical communication system. Finally, an optical communication system utilizes a Raman amplifier fiber pumped by a train of Raman-shifted, wavelength-tunable pump pulses, to thereby amplify an optical signal which counterpropogates within the Raman amplifier fiber with respect to the pump pulses.

A modular, compact and widely tunable laser system for the efficient generation of high peak and high average power ultrashort pulses. Modularity is ensured by the implementation of interchangeable amplifier components. System compactness is ensured by employing efficient fiber amplifiers, directly or indirectly pumped by diode lasers. Peak power handling capability of the fiber amplifiers is expanded by using optimized pulse shapes, as well as dispersively broadened pulses. Dispersive broadening is introduced by dispersive pulse stretching in the presence of self-phase modulation and gain, resulting in the formation of high-power parabolic pulses. In addition, dispersive broadening is also introduced by simple fiber delay lines or chirped fiber gratings, resulting in a further increase of the energy handling ability of the fiber amplifiers. The phase of the pulses in the dispersive delay line is controlled to quartic order by the use of fibers with varying amounts of waveguide dispersion or by controlling the chirp of the fiber gratings. After amplification, the dispersively stretched pulses can be re-compressed to nearly their bandwidth limit by the implementation of another set of dispersive delay lines. To ensure a wide tunability of the whole system, Raman-shifting of the compact sources of ultrashort pulses in conjunction with frequency-conversion in nonlinear optical crystals can be implemented, or an Anti-Stokes fiber in conjunction with fiber amplifiers and Raman-shifters are used. A particularly compact implementation of the whole system uses fiber oscillators in conjunction with fiber amplifiers. Additionally, long, distributed, positive dispersion optical amplifiers are used to improve transmission characteristics of an optical communication system. Finally, an optical communication system utilizes a Raman amplifier fiber pumped by a train of Raman-shifted, wavelength-tunable pump pulses, to thereby amplify an optical signal which counterpropogates within the Raman amplifier fiber with respect to the pump pulses.

A grating dispersion compensator (GDC), including: a substrate; a dielectric grating layer; a planar waveguide; and a passivation layer. The dielectric grating layer may be formed on the substrate and includes a variation in refractive index. This variation in refractive index defines a grating period. The grating period may vary along the longitudinal axis of the GDC according to a predetermined function. A selected center wavelength and dispersion curve may be created. The chirp of the grating period may be controlled by current, voltage, temperature, or pressure. The planar waveguide is formed on the dielectric grating layer and includes an input / output (I / O) surface normal to the longitudinal axis of the planar waveguide. The passivation layer is formed on the planar waveguide. Alternatively, a GDC may be formed with the dielectric grating layer on top of the planar waveguide rather then beneath it.

An apparatus and method for high-resolution reflectometry that operates simultaneously in both the time and frequency domains, utilizing time-frequency signal analysis and a chirp signal multiplied by a Gaussian time envelope. The Gaussian envelope provides time localization, while the chirp allows one to excite the system under test with a swept sinewave covering a frequency band of interest. High resolution in detection of the reflected signal is provided by a time-frequency cross correlation function. The high-accuracy localization of faults in a wire / cable can be achieved by measurement of time delay offset obtained from the frequency offset of the reflected signal. The apparatus enables one to execute an automated diagnostic procedure of a wire / cable under test by control of peripheral devices.

A monolithically-integrated semiconductor optical transmitter that can index tune to any transmission wavelength in a given range, wherein the range is larger than that achievable by the maximum refractive index tuning allowed by the semiconductor material itself (i.e. Δλ / λ>Δn / n). In practice, this tuning range is >15 nm. The transmitter includes a Mach-Zehnder (MZ) modulator monolithically integrated with a widely tunable laser and a semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA). By using an interferometric modulation, the transmitter can dynamically control the chirp in the resulting modulated signal over the wide tuning range of the laser.

This disclosure presents a non-contact precision optical device, including methods for measuring distances to an arbitrary target and various configuration geometries, for using polarization maintaining (PM) optical fiber components in a polarization diplexing scheme to construct a version of a dual chirp coherent laser radar that is immune to environmental effects.

An optical transmission network includes an optical transmitter photonic integrated circuit (TxPIC) chip, utilized in an optical transmitter and has a plurality of monolithic modulated sources integrated for multiple signal channels on the same semiconductor chip is provided with channel equalization at the optical receiver side of the network that permits one or more such integrated modulated sources in the TxPIC chip to be out of specification thereby increasing the chip yield and reducing manufacturing costs in the deployment of such TxPIC chips. FEC error counts at the FEC decoder on the optical receiver side of the network includes counters that accumulate a plurality of bit pattern-dependent error counts based on different N-bit patterns in the received data bit stream. The accumulated counts of different N-bit patterns are utilized to provide for corrections to threshold and phase relative to the bit eye pattern as well as provided for weight coefficients for the optical receiver equalization system. The deployment of this type of equalization in a digital OEO REGEN network substantially reduces, if not eliminates, the need for dispersion compensating fiber (DCF) or EDFAs in an optical link of the network and enhances the optical receiver tolerance to chromatic dispersion (CD) so that an increase in chip yield is realized for TxPIC chips not operating with acceptable operational parameters, particularly with a desired frequency chirp parameter relative to at least one of the TxPIC modulated sources.