Processing amplitude modulation signals with noise estimation

An apparatus comprising:

• a first circuit having signal paths to process an amplitude modulated (AM) signal as represented by an in-phase component and by an out-of-phase or quadrature component;
• a second circuit to discern random noise pulses from the quadrature component of the AM signal and, in response, to generate an estimate of overall noise representing the random noise pulses in the AM signal;
• and
• a signal processing circuit to use the quadrature component by filtering the overall noise and in response, by producing a demodulated noise-filtered signal corresponding to the amplitude modulated signal, wherein the amplitude modulated signal is a modulated radio-frequency signal having at least one radio-frequency (RF) carrier frequency that has the amplitude modulated signal as at least a dominant modulation contributor for representing information carried by the RF carrier frequency.

An apparatus comprising:

• a first circuit having signal paths to process an amplitude modulated (AM) signal as represented by an in-phase component and by an out-of-phase or quadrature component;
• a second circuit to discern random noise pulses from the quadrature component of the AM signal and, in response, to generate an estimate of overall noise representing the random noise pulses in the AM signal;
• and
• an RF radio having an antenna, wherein the first circuit is configured to receive the AM signal from the antenna and is further configured to separate the AM signal into the in-phase component and the out-of-phase or quadrature component, wherein during operation, the first circuit receives the random noise pulses via the antenna and as pulses which overlap with, in terms of time and bandwidth of frequency spectrum.

A method carried out by a circuit, the method comprising:

• in a first circuit, processing an amplitude modulated (AM) signal in signal paths respectively representing the AM signal as an in-phase component and a quadrature component;
• in a second circuit, discerning random noise pulses from the quadrature component of the AM signal and, in response, generating an estimate of overall noise representing the random noise pulses in the amplitude modulated signal, and applying a gain function based on the estimate for producing a noise mitigated output signal, wherein the gain function is based on or derived from calculated gains associated with bins used to characterize one or more aspects of the AM signal;
• and
• as part of the first and second circuits, signal processing circuitry operating to (a) estimate the noise level of the quadrature component input, (b) extract the magnitude spectrum from the in-phase component input, and (c) use the noise spectrum estimate to subtract a scaled noise magnitude spectrum from the in-phase component input.