SBIR-STTR Award

The development of a greatly enhanced receiver for the WWVB signal is targeted, as well as possible modifications in the transmitted signal, which would both offer significant improvements in its effective coverage. This is to be achieved while allowing the replacement of the bulky, expensive, ferrite-based antenna, commonly used in the receiver, with a novel lower-cost antenna. Furthermore, the proposed receiver architecture, leveraging on today’s technologies for integrated receivers and on newly proposed schemes, would allow for the elimination of the commonly used high-cost crystal filter, while improving selectivity and robustness to interference. The proposed modification to the transmitted signal is designed to maintain backwards-compatibility and therefore would not affect its reception by the existing devices, while offering a significant advantage in its reception by the newly proposed receivers. Commercial Applications: The proposed receiver architecture targets commercial applications, as it is of low cost and low form-factor, allowing the smallest of devices to incorporate self-adjusting time-keeping features. It is envisioned that this would accelerate the already-high demand for atomic clocks/watches, which have become popular in watches and other time-keeping devices in the consumer market. Commercialization would be pursued by fabricating the proposed programmable receiver and offering it not only for time-keeping devices, such as clocks and watches, but also as an added feature for more complex systems, where it may be integrated as an IP (intellectual property) within a larger system-on-chip (SoC)

This Phase 2 project targets the completion of the development of an improved system for the broadcasting of the WWVB signal, as a direct continuation of the Phase 1 project, which successfully validated the proposed approach through a feasibility study and analyses. Objectives of this project include the design of the new modulation scheme and protocol, the development of a new time-code generator to be used in place of the existing one, and the development and demonstration of a receiver prototype that can validate the expected improvement in the performance, as well as low-cost manufacturability. The novel receiver architecture, relying extensively on digital processing, is to be realized in a CMOS fabrication process, allowing it to be integrated with many types of CMOS system-on-chip products, including microprocessors for remote metering applications, clocks, MP3 players, and many more. Additionally, new structures of low-cost antennas for various applications are targeted, to replace the commonly used ferrite-rod antennas, and more specifically to avoid directionality and nulls in the antenna pattern. Commercial Applications: A very wide range of potential commercial applications exist for the enhanced performance and features offered by Xtendwave’s technology being developed under this SBIR project. These include virtually any electronic device that could benefit from a time stamp or display. The wider geographical coverage allowed by the enhanced sensitivity and improved interference robustness, will make possible virtually ubiquitous use of NIST’s WWVB broadcast signal. The new modulation approach and protocol will also allow additional information, such as emergency alerts. The incorporation of time-dependent energy-saving features into various appliances will be a major benefit. Xtendwave’s CMOS compatible design will enable straightforward SoC integration, and combined with a compact, low-cost antenna, will result in a low cost, highly integrated solution compared to existing products. Xtendwave’s products will result in a US generation that will never think about setting any type of clock anymore than winding one.