Simplified Three-Cornered-Hat Technique for Frequency Stability Measurements

Author

Gunn, Lachlan J. ; Catlow, Peter G. ; Al-Ashwal, Waddah A. ; Hartnett, John ; Allison, Andrew ; Abbott, Derek

Author_Institution

Sch. of Electr. & Electron. Eng., Univ. of Adelaide, Adelaide, SA, Australia

Volume

63

Issue

4

fYear

2014

fDate

Apr-14

Firstpage

889

Lastpage

895

Abstract

We propose a novel technique allowing the use of the three-cornered-hat method with two devices under test (DUTs) and a time-tagging system that employs a common reference oscillator. The precision of a time-tagging system is reduced by fluctuations in the timebase, which are canceled when the relative phase between the two DUTs is measured. However, the raw time-tags in this system provide a phase comparison between the DUTs and the system timebase, allowing the use of the three-cornered hat with some dual-channel measurement instruments.

Keywords

frequency measurement; frequency stability; oscillators; DUT; common reference oscillator; devices under test; dual-channel measurement instrument; frequency stability measurement; simplified three-cornered-hat technique; time-tagging system; Extraterrestrial measurements; Frequency measurement; Noise; Noise measurement; Oscillators; Phase measurement; Radiation detectors; Frequency stability; noise measurement; phase noise; test equipment; three-cornered-hat method;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Instrumentation and Measurement, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9456

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/TIM.2013.2285796

Filename

6651775