Dominant signal detection method and apparatus

A dominant signal detection apparatus comprising:

• a digital frequency translator comprising circuitry configured to receive an input signal and to output a digital signal that is frequency translated relative to the input signal;
• and
• a spectral analysis engine comprising circuitry configured to identify a subrange of a frequency of the digital signal, the subrange including a dominant signal,
• wherein the digital frequency translator and the spectral analysis engine are together arranged to recursively search an input frequency range of the input signal, and at each iteration of the recursive search to search a reduced frequency search range identified in a previous iteration of the recursive search as including the dominant signal, and to continue the recursive search until a frequency of the dominant signal has been estimated to a predetermined accuracy,
• wherein the spectral analysis engine comprises a Fast Fourier Transform engine configured to divide the subrange identified in the previous iteration using the Fast Fourier Transform engine into bins and to identify the subrange based on a bin of the bins having the greatest magnitude.

A dominant signal detection apparatus comprising:

• a frequency translator comprising circuitry configured to receive an input signal and to provide an output signal that is frequency translated relative to the input signal;
• and
• a spectral analysis engine comprising circuitry configured to identify a subrange of a frequency of the output signal, the subrange including a dominant signal, wherein the circuitry of the spectral analysis engine comprises a Fast Fourier Transform engine,
• wherein the frequency translator and the spectral analysis engine are together arranged to recursively search an input frequency range of the input signal, and to search a reduced frequency search range identified in a previous iteration of the recursive search as including the dominant signal at each iteration of the recursive search, and to continue the recursive search until a frequency of the dominant signal has been estimated to a predetermined accuracy, and
• wherein the Fast Fourier transform engine is configured to divide the reduced frequency range into the same number of bins in each iteration of the recursive search.

An electronically-implemented method of analyzing a signal in a blocker detector to locate at least one comparatively significant interfering frequency component therein, the blocker detector configured to receive the signal from an analog-to-digital converter of a radio receiver, the method comprising:

• analyzing, using electronic hardware of the blocker detector, a test range of frequencies of the signal received from the analog-to-digital converter of the radio receiver to identify a subrange of the test range that includes a potentially significant interfering component within the test range, wherein the subrange is smaller than the test range;
• and
• iteratively performing the analyzing on the subrange identified in the previous analyzing until a condition for finishing the analysis has been met, wherein the blocker detector is configured to determine whether the condition has been met;
• wherein the iteratively performing the analyzing comprises using a parametric engine to determine a dominant pole in the subrange identified in the previous analyzing and to identify the subrange based on the dominant pole.

A dominant signal detection apparatus comprising:

• a digital frequency translator comprising circuitry configured to receive an input signal and to output a digital signal that is frequency translated relative to the input signal;
• and
• a spectral analysis engine comprising circuitry configured to identify a subrange of a frequency of the digital signal, the subrange including a dominant signal,
• wherein the digital frequency translator and the spectral analysis engine are together arranged to recursively search an input frequency range of the input signal, and at each iteration of the recursive search to search a reduced frequency search range identified in a previous iteration of the recursive search as including the dominant signal, and to continue the recursive search until a frequency of the dominant signal has been estimated to a predetermined accuracy,
• wherein the spectral analysis engine comprises a parametric engine configured to determine a dominant pole in the subrange identified in the previous iteration and to identify the subrange based on the dominant pole.