[Hackrf-dev] How to correlate received RF-Signal with reception time (GPS based) in a deterministic way for further processing of both information?

[Andreas Hornig]

Hi there,

I am new to this email list and also would like to say "hello!" to everyone
in here!

I follow the hackrf project for quite some time and now I have a question I
couldn't answer by myself and reading the official pages. So I would be
happy if you could answer it.

So, how could it be possible to correlate the received RF-Signal with
reception time (GPS based) in a deterministic way for further processing of
both information?

What I aim to do is to receive an RF signal via hack-rf but this signal
shall be correlated with the gps time. And to be more specific, the
reception time measuring is based on the 1 pulse per second signal of a GPS
module which is used to synch a simple counter, or you can call it
multiplier, so that subseconds down to 25 nanoseconds is possible (I want
to use a 40 MHz quarz).
My requirements are, that the behaviour of this shall be deterministic and
that it shall be able to mark the incoming rf signal with reception time
tags several times per seconds. So when a "bit" comes in, the system shall
be able to have a time mark for this bit and in between time gaps, there
shall still be a way to use two time tags and interpolation to determine
the according time mark for this bit with only a small error.

I know that hackrf can be synched to use it for antenna arrays and for just
increasing the reception and sending accuracy. But I am still not sure if
my application can be done with it or how.

What would be perfect is to have two parallel processes, one for the rf
reception and one for the sub second counting and time marking or the rf
stream. I am not sure if the CLPD onboard of hackrf could do this.

In the end, I need two streams that allow to have a remaining
bit-time-correlation that can be used for further processing on a PC.

I hope this is possible with hackrf and I am looking forward for any
reaction. In case I didn't explain it well enough, just feel free to ask! :)

Best regards,


Andreas
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