Analysis of a radio-frequency environment utilizing pulse masking

• US 10,393,784 B2
• Filed: 04/26/2017
• Issued: 08/27/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 04/26/2017
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Raytheon Company (Rtx Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Raytheon Company (Rtx Corporation)
• Inventors: Logan, Jeffery Jay, Marr, Jr., Harry B., Robinson, Ian S.
• Primary Examiner(s): Le, John H
• Application Number:
  US15/497,554
• Publication Number:
  US 20180313880A1
• Time in Patent Office: 853 Days
• Field of Search: 702 79, 368 47, 708422
• CPC Class Codes: G01R 23/155 giving an indication of the number of times this occurs, i.e. multi-channel analysers (for pulse characteristics)
• CPC Class Codes: G01R 29/0273 the pulse characteristic being duration, i.e. width (indicating that frequency of pulses is above or below a certain limit)
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 7/021 Auxiliary means for detecting or identifying radar signals or the like, e.g. radar jamming signals
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 7/292 Extracting wanted echo-signals
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 7/295 Means for transforming co-ordinates or for evaluating data, e.g. using computers

Abstract

Radio-frequency (RF) signal analysis includes slow-time signal processing and fast-time signal processing. Incoming RF pulses are captured according to a resource scheduling configuration. The fast-time signal processing is to prioritize the captured RF pulses for slow-time signal processing based on dynamic pulse-grading criteria. The slow-time signal processing is to perform relevance evaluation of the prioritized RF pulses, and to adjust the dynamic pulse-grading criteria and the resource scheduling configuration based on the relevance evaluation.

Claims

1. A radio-frequency (RF) signal analyzer for analyzing RF pulses, the RF signal analyzer comprising:

pulse capture circuitry to capture incoming RF pulses according to a resource scheduling configuration and to store captured RF pulses; and

signal-processing circuitry including fast-time signal processing circuitry and slow-time signal processing circuitry, wherein;

the fast-time signal processing circuitry is to prioritize the captured RF pulses for slow-time signal processing based on application of feature set-specific pulse masks and dynamic pulse-grading criteria, wherein each of the pulse masks represents pulse features and values of the pulse features that are relevant for analysis of the RF pulses; and

the slow-time signal processing is to perform relevance evaluation of the prioritized RF pulses, and to adjust the dynamic pulse-grading criteria and the resource scheduling configuration based on the relevance evaluation.

2. The RF signal analyzer of claim 1, wherein the fast-time signal processing circuitry includes a feature correlator to extract various predefined features of the RF pulses and assess correlations between features of the RF pulses to determine one or more emitters of interest.

3. The RF signal analyzer of claim 2, wherein the feature correlator is to generate:

pulse descriptor data structures, each pulse descriptor data structure based on extracted features of a corresponding RF pulse;

an emitter descriptor data structure based on detected correlations of features of various pulse descriptor data structures corresponding to different pulses; and

an active emitter data structure based on a plurality of emitter descriptor data structures.

4. The RF signal analyzer of claim 1, wherein the fast-time signal processing circuitry includes a pulse mask store containing the feature set-specific pulse masks.

5. The RF signal analyzer of claim 4, wherein each pulse mask is to be compared against a RF pulse descriptor data structure to assess whether a corresponding feature set of the RF pulse is relevant for analysis of the pulse.

6. The RF signal analyzer of claim 4, wherein each pulse mask is represented as an N-dimensional array representing N pulse features, wherein N is greater than one.

7. The RF signal analyzer of claim 6, wherein N is equal to two.

8. The RF signal analyzer of claim 4, wherein each pulse mask represents a pulse feature distribution over a spectrum of frequencies.

9. The RF signal analyzer of claim 4, further comprising:

a feature grader to apply pulse-grading criteria to update at least one of the pulse masks based on temporal proximity weighting of relevance at least one corresponding feature of the RF pulses.

10. The RF signal analyzer of claim 1, wherein the fast-time signal processing circuitry includes:

a signal processing input buffer to store RF pulse information for pulses to be processed; and

an input buffer prioritizer to reorder the RF pulse information according to assessed relevance of the RF pulses.

11. The RF signal analyzer of claim 1, wherein the slow-time signal processing circuitry includes a machine-learning engine to determine relevance of features of the RF pulses according to at least one machine-learning algorithm.

12. An automated method for analyzing radio-frequency (RF) pulses, the method comprising:

capturing incoming RF pulses according to a resource scheduling configuration;

storing the captured RF pulses;

applying fast-time signal processing to perform prioritizing of the captured RF pulses for slow-time signal processing based on application of feature set-specific pulse masks and dynamic pulse-grading criteria, wherein each of the pulse masks represents pulse features and values of the pulse features that are relevant for analysis of the RF pulses;

performing relevance evaluation of the prioritized RF pulses via the slow-time signal processing; and

adjusting the dynamic pulse-grading criteria and the resource scheduling configuration based on the relevance evaluation.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein in the fast-time signal processing, various predefined features of the RF pulses are extracted and correlations between features of the RF pulses are assessed to determine one or more emitters of interest.

14. The method of claim 12, wherein the fast-time signal processing includes storing the feature set-specific pulse masks.

15. The method of claim 12, wherein the fast-time signal processing includes:

storing RF pulse information for pulses to be processed; and

reordering the RF pulse information according to assessed relevance of the RF pulses.

16. A set of at least one non-transitory machine-readable medium containing instructions that, when executed by signal-processing equipment, cause the signal-processing equipment to:

capture incoming RF pulses according to a resource scheduling configuration;

store the captured RF pulses;

apply fast-time signal processing to perform prioritizing of the captured RF pulses for slow-time signal processing based on application of feature set-specific pulse masks and dynamic pulse-grading criteria, wherein each of the pulse masks represents pulse features and values of the pulse features that are relevant for analysis of the RF pulses;

perform relevance evaluation of the prioritized RF pulses via the slow-time signal processing; and

adjust the dynamic pulse-grading criteria and the resource scheduling configuration based on the relevance evaluation.

17. The set of at least one machine-readable medium of claim 16, wherein in the fast-time signal processing, various predefined features of the RF pulses are extracted and correlations between features of the RF pulses are assessed to determine one or more emitters of interest.

18. The set of at least one machine-readable medium of claim 16, wherein the fast-time signal processing includes storing the feature set-specific pulse masks.

19. The set of at least one machine-readable medium of claim 18, wherein each pulse mask is compared against a RF pulse descriptor data structure to assess whether a corresponding feature set of the RF pulse is relevant for analysis of the pulse.

20. The set of at least one machine-readable medium of claim 18, wherein each pulse mask is represented as an N-dimensional array representing N pulse features, wherein N is greater than one.

21. The set of at least one machine-readable medium of claim 20, wherein N is equal to two.

22. The set of at least one machine-readable medium of claim 18, wherein each pulse mask represents a pulse feature distribution over a spectrum of frequencies.

23. The set of at least one machine-readable medium of claim 18, further comprising:

instructions that, when executed by signal-processing equipment, cause the signal-processing equipment to apply pulse-grading criteria to update at least one of the pulse masks based on temporal proximity weighting of relevance at least one corresponding feature of the RF pulses.

24. The set of at least one machine-readable medium of claim 16, wherein the fast-time signal processing includes:

storing RF pulse information for pulses to be processed; and

reordering the RF pulse information according to assessed relevance of the RF pulses.

25. A system for analyzing radio-frequency (RF) pulses, the system comprising:

circuitry to capture incoming RF pulses according to a resource scheduling configuration;

memory to store the captured RF pulses; and

processing circuitry;

to perform fast-time signal processing to prioritize the captured RF pulses;

to perform slow-time signal processing based on application of feature set-specific pulse masks and dynamic pulse-grading criteria, wherein each of the pulse masks represents pulse features and values of the pulse features that are relevant for analysis of the RF pulses;

to perform a relevance evaluation of the prioritized RF pulses based on the slow-time signal processing; and

to adjust the dynamic pulse-grading criteria and the resource scheduling configuration based on the relevance evaluation.