Capacitive sensor filtering apparatus, method, and system

A method for operating a capacitive sensor, comprising:

• providing a sensor electrode;
• periodically exciting the sensor electrode and thereby periodically generating an electric field about the sensor electrode and a capacitance between the sensor electrode and a reference potential;
• periodically determining in the time domain values of capacitance between the sensor electrode and the reference potential;
• continuously transforming a rolling sample of the periodically-determined values of capacitance from the time domain to a plurality of data signals in the frequency domain using a transform, each of the data signals in a corresponding frequency bin resulting from the transform and each of the data signals comprising values related to capacitance for corresponding samples of the rolling sample;
• analyzing in the frequency domain at least one of the plurality of data signals in the corresponding frequency bin;
• and
• determining whether a touch event has occurred based on the analysis in the frequency domain of the at least one of the plurality of data signals in the corresponding frequency bin;
• wherein the rolling sample is an n-point rolling sample including a current sample and n−1 samples immediately preceding the current sample, wherein the n−1 samples include a last sample, wherein n=2x and x is an integer greater than or equal to 2, and wherein performance of the transform yields n frequency bins numbered 0 through n−1.