Method and apparatus for noise floor estimation
AssigneeHer Majesty the Queen in right of Canada, as represented by the Minister of Industry through the Communications Research Centre
InventorsFrancois Patenaud, Martial Dufour
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A method and device are provided for an improved system and method of estimating the noise floor of a wideband signal without full knowledge of the nature of the narrowband signals contained therein, and provides digital characteristics to allow real-time signal processing with low levels of computational complexity. The method and device require very little a priori knowledge of the nature of the signals, allow both robust performance in non-ideal environments, and automated maximum sensitivity threshold setting.
Claims37
A method of estimating the noise floor of a continuous wideband analogue signal comprising the steps:
- a. representing the continuous wideband analogue signal as a series of discrete frequency and amplitude values;
- b. creating a histogram based on the discrete frequency and amplitude values by;
- establishing a lowest bin representing the lowest integer value of the discrete series representing the wideband signal,
- establishing a highest bin representing the highest integer value of the discrete series representing the wideband signal,
- establishing bins for each integer value between the lowest and highest bins, and
- incrementing the value of at least one bin when there is an upward or downward crossing of the bin by at least one segment of the series representing the wideband signal;
- and
- c. deriving a noise floor estimate from characteristics of the histogram.
A method of estimating the noise floor of a continuous wideband analogue signal comprising steps of:
- a. representing the continuous wideband analogue signal as a series of discrete frequency and amplitude values;
- b. creating a histogram based on the discrete frequency and amplitude values by;
- establishing a lowest bin representing the lowest integer dB value of the discrete series representing the wideband signal;
- establishing a highest bin representing the highest integer dB value of the discrete series representing the wideband signal;
- establishing bins for each integer dB value between the lowest and highest bins so that there are a total of MK bins;
- incrementing the bins for each time an element in the discrete series falls into the bin;
- and
- deriving a noise floor estimate from characteristics of the histogram.
A wideband analogue signal noise floor estimation apparatus comprising:
- a digitizer module for creating a discrete series representation of a continuous wide band analogue signal, the representation comprised of discrete frequency and amplitude values;
- b. a histogram module for generating a histogram based on the discrete frequency and amplitude values, the histogram module including
- a low bin establishing element for creating a low valued bin to represent the integer value of lowest valued element in the discrete series representing the wideband signal,
- a high bin establishing element for creating a high valued bin to represent the integer value of the highest valued element in the discrete series representing the wideband signal,
- a tertiary bin creation element for creating bins for each integer value between the lowest and highest bins, and
- a bin count incrementing element for incrementing a value of a bin when there is an upward or downward crossing of the bin by at least a segment of the discrete series;
- and
- c. an estimation module for deriving an estimate of the noise floor of the wideband signal based on the characteristics of the histogram.
A wideband analogue signal noise floor estimation apparatus comprising:
- a digitizer module for creating a discrete series representation of a continuous wide band analogue signal, the representation comprised of discrete frequency and amplitude values;
- b. a histogram module for generating a histogram based on the discrete frequency and amplitude values, the histogram module including
- a low bin establishing element for creating a low valued bin to represent the lowest integer dB values of the discrete series representing the wideband signal,
- a high bin establishing element for creating a high valued bin to represent the highest integer dB value of the discrete series representing the wideband signal,
- a tertiary bin creation element for creating bins for each integer dB value between the lowest and highest bins, and
- a bin count incrementing element for incrementing a value of a bin for each time an element in the discrete series falls into the bin.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.