High‐resolution multi‐channel frequency standard comparator using digital frequency measurement

Abstract

The rapid improvement accuracy of the atomic frequency standard puts forward higher requirements for the measurement resolution of the atomic frequency standard comparison system. To overcome the defect that the single zero‐crossing point detection is sensitive to noise in the tra-ditional dual mixer time difference measurement method, a digital frequency measurement method is proposed. This method combines sinusoidal beat technology, multi‐channel synchronous acqui-sition technology, and digital frequency measurement technology, and uses differential compensation of system error to realize the precision measurement of atomic frequency standard. The frequency measurement accuracy is less than 2.5 × 10−14 and the noise floor is better than 6.5 × 10−15/τ = 1 s. The system has a high frequency measurement accuracy and a low noise floor, which can realize the precise measurement of a highly stable frequency source.