System and method of determining short range distance between RF equipped devices

DETAILED DESCRIPTION In an application where it is desirable to know the approximate distance between communicating devices employing a short range radio link, one device transmits a digitized data message using the short range radio link followed by digital data representing a digitized acoustic signal, such as a tone.
Simultaneously, or with a predetermined time delay, the transmitting device emits an acoustic version of the same signal using an acoustic transducer such as a loudspeaker.
The receiving device receives the data message and the digitized acoustic signal via the short range radio link and receives the acoustic version of the signal via a microphone, which converts the acoustic signal to a second digitized version of the acoustic signal.
Digital signal processing circuits then correlate the second digitized signal received acoustically with the digitized acoustic signal received over the short range radio link to determine a time difference of arrival between the two signals.
The time difference is corrected for any predetermined delay(s) between the radio and the acoustic signal emissions at the transmitter and predetermined processing delay(s) in the receiver.
Once a corrected time delay is determined, the receiving device can determine its distance from the transmitting device using the difference between the speed of sound and the speed of radio propagation.