How to add time in microseconds to system time for delayed transmission?

Wireless Connectivity Ultra-Wideband
1

I am struggeling with the correct approach for delayed transmission, this is the way how I am doing it at the moment but it doesn’t work (the delay is way to much, multiple seconds instead of microsenconds):

def sendTX(spi_cs, spi, delay_us=3000):
    if delay_us > 0:
        SYS_TIME = read(reg_addr=0x06, sub_reg_addr=0x00, len=5, spi_cs=spi_cs, spi=spi)
        delay_bytes = list(int.to_bytes(delay_us, length=5, byteorder="little"))
        future_timestamp = [sum(x) for x in zip(SYS_TIME, delay_bytes)]
        write(reg_addr=0x0A, sub_reg_addr=0x00, data=future_timestamp, spi_cs=spi_cs, spi=spi)
    sys_ctrl = read(reg_addr=0x0D, sub_reg_addr=0x00, len=4, spi_cs=spi_cs, spi=spi)
    sys_ctrl[0] &= ~0x01  # Disable Suppress auto-FCS
    sys_ctrl[0] |= (1 << 1)  # Transmit Start
    if delay_us > 0:
        sys_ctrl[0] |= (1 << 2)  # Transmitter Delay
    write(reg_addr=0x0D, sub_reg_addr=0x00, data=sys_ctrl, spi_cs=spi_cs, spi=spi)

The question I keep asking myself is how to properly add the delay of 3000 microseconds to the system time, because the system time is not in microseconds but in system ticks - how can I convert 3000µs to system ticks?

Best regards and thank you so much for any tips & hints

2

Hi @maxG ,

This is how it’s computed in the twr example in XR6.0C release:
https://www.qorvo.com/products/d/da007992

            /* Compute final message transmission time. See NOTE 11 below. */
            final_tx_time = (resp_rx_ts + (RESP_RX_TO_FINAL_TX_DLY_UUS * UUS_TO_DWT_TIME)) >> 8;
            dwt_setdelayedtrxtime(final_tx_time);

I think you can use the same technique for your use case.

Hope it helps,
Wassim

3

The system tick is at a fixed known rate. So all you need to do is multiply the time by the correct constant to give you the delay in ticks.
I use two constants in my code:
#define TIMEUNITS_TO_US (1/(128 * 499.2))
#define US_TO_TIMEUNITS (128 * 499.2)

For distance calculations I then also define
#define c_mPerS 299792458
#define c_mmPerTick (c_mPerS * TIMEUNITS_TO_US / 1000)
#define c_mPerTick (c_mmPerTick/1000)

So multiply the time in us by US_TO_TIMEUNITS and you will get the time in DW ticks.
Keep in mind that the last 9 bits of the transmit time register will be forced to 0, so your transmit will be early by (calculated_time MOD 512)*TIMEUNITS_TO_US microseconds

If you are setting a transmit time based on the current clock this probably isn’t much of an issue, the exact transmit time clearly isn’t that critical. However it’s more normal to calculate a transmit time based on the last receive time rather than the current time. In that situation you normally want very accurate timing and those last 9 bits matter, you will normally want to include them in the message being sent so the other end can correct for the error.