System and method for detecting signals across radar and communications bands

Abstract

Apparatus and methods for processing RF signals are disclosed. A method according to the invention includes receiving a set of time domain energy samples representing signal energy present in an RF spectrum, transforming the set of time domain energy samples into a set of frequency domain power samples, determining from the set of frequency domain power samples whether a signal of interest is present in the RF spectrum, and forwarding to a follow on system a subset of the set of frequency domain power samples, wherein the subset corresponds to the signal of interest. Transforming the time domain samples can include dividing the set of time domain energy samples into a plurality of N windows, each of which is associated with a predefined window period, and performing an FFT on each said window to generate a set of K frequency bins, wherein each frequency bin has a value based on energy present in a predefined frequency band during the corresponding window period. Determining whether the signal is present can include generating an energy map that represents energy present in the RF spectrum as a function of frequency and time. The energy map can be a bitmap having N×K frequency cells, wherein each frequency cell has a binary value based on the value of a corresponding frequency bin. The binary value can be based on whether the value of the corresponding frequency bin exceeds a predefined threshold.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.