In the present work the performance of alow-cost ultrasonic rangefinder system exploiting linearchirp excitation signal and the Frequency ModulatedContinuous Wave technique is analyzed, evaluated interms of resolution and computational cost, andcompared with the results achievable by means of thestandard technique based on the matched-filter theory.

The system, based on a Voltage Controlled Oscillatorand an analog mixer, shifts some of the processingrequired by the FMCW protocol in the analog domain,strongly relaxing the requirements on the signalsampling rate without reducing the achievable rangeresolution. The final target is to evaluate the possibilityof implementing the FMCW technique in very low costand hand held devices