Antenna System Monitor
AssigneeRF Industries Pty Ltd
InventorsMichael W. Jones, Lambertus A. M. Voskulen
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A system is disclosed for monitoring of individual frequency channels in an RF signal band by configuration of the electronic processor to operate the tunable filter to select desired channel sub bands. Measurement of forward and/or reverse-propagating fields within the selected sub-bands may be performed and corresponding power levels recorded. The records may be used to provide monitoring signals, such as measures of forward and reflected power, as well as VSWR, return loss. Indications or alarms may be activated if any of these quantities, associated with any one or more channels, falls outside a predetermined acceptable operating range.
Claims20
A method, comprising:
- tuning a selected frequency sub-band having a center frequency and a bandwidth from an input signal received from a transmitter, in which tuning the selected frequency sub-band comprises:
- selecting a first frequency sub-band for a first filter by selecting a first frequency for a first radio frequency (RF) synthesizer of the first filter;
- selecting a second frequency sub-band for a second filter by selecting a second frequency, different from the first frequency, for a second RF synthesizer of the second filter, such that the second frequency sub-band at least partially overlaps the first frequency sub-band;
- and
- mixing an output of the first filter and the second filter to obtain the selected frequency sub-band;
- generating a detector output corresponding to radio frequency (RF) power in the selected frequency sub-band of the received input signal;
- and
- recording the detector output for the selected frequency sub-band.
An apparatus, comprising:
- a tunable filter comprising a tuning signal input, a radio frequency (RF) filter input, and an RF filter output,
- in which the tunable filter passes a first frequency sub-band, selected by the tuning signal input, from the RF filter input to the RF filter output, and the tunable filter comprises:
- a first RF synthesizer coupled to a first filter;
- and
- a second RF synthesizer coupled to a second filter;
- in which the first filter is coupled to the second filter;
- an RF detector comprising a detector input port coupled to the RF filter output and comprising a detector output port, in which the RF detector generates a detector output corresponding to RF power received at the detector input port;
- and
- a processor comprising a tuning signal output coupled to the tuning signal input of the tunable filter and comprising a power signal input coupled to the detector output of the RF detector,
- in which the processor is configured:
- to generate on the tuning signal output a signal corresponding to the first frequency sub-band;
- and
- to record the detector output corresponding to RF power in the first frequency sub-band.
A computer program product, comprising
- a non-transitory computer-readable medium comprising:
- code to generate a tuning signal output corresponding with a selected frequency sub-band;
- code to generate a first synthesizer tuning signal to select a first frequency for a first RF synthesizer;
- code to generate a second synthesizer tuning signal to select a second frequency for a second RF synthesizer different from the first frequency;
- code to receive an RF power input signal corresponding to an RF power of at least one RF signal input within the selected frequency sub-band;
- code to compute at least one monitoring signal value based, at least in part, upon the RF power input signal;
- and
- code to generate at least one monitoring signal value output.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.