Method and signal intelligence collection system that reduces output data overflow in real-time

• US 20070287395A1
• Filed: 08/11/2005
• Published: 12/13/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 08/11/2004
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Agilent Technologies, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Agilent Technologies, Inc.
• Inventors: Karlsson, Lars
• Application Number:
  US11/201,164
• Publication Number:
  US 20070287395A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 455/133
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 3/02 using radio waves
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 17/27 for locating or positioning the transmitter

Abstract

Systems and methods of collecting intelligence provide an intelligence system having a front-end, a post-processing stage and a direction-finding stage. The front-end may generate digital data based on received RF signals, where the post-processing stage may process the digital data. The direction finding stage is able to prevent the post-processing stage from processing portions of the digital data that correspond to RF signals arriving from a direction other than a pre-determined direction. In one embodiment, the front end collects the RF signals in a plurality of parallel channels.

Claims

1. An intelligence system comprising:

a front end to generate digital data based on received RF signals;

a post-processing stage to process the digital data; and

a direction finding stage to prevent the post-processing stage from processing portions of the digital data that correspond to RF signals arriving from a direction other than a predetermined direction.

2. The intelligence system of claim 1, wherein the front end is to collect the RF signals in a plurality of parallel channels.

3. The intelligence system of claim 2, wherein the direction finding stage is to identify an arrival direction for each of a plurality of frequency bins by determining at least one of a phase difference and a frequency difference between data in the plurality of channels.

4. The intelligence system of claim 2, wherein each channel includes:

an antenna to collect the received RF signals;

a wideband downconverter to generate analog intermediate frequency signals based on the received RF signals;

an analog to digital converter to generate the digital data based on the RF signals; and

a fast Fourier transform module to convert the digital data into frequency domain data.

5. The intelligence system of claim 2, wherein the plurality of channels includes a north-south channel, an east-west channel and a reference channel.

6. The intelligence system of claim 1, wherein the direction finding stage is to generate bin data that identifies frequency bins associated with RF signals arriving from the predetermined direction, the system further including a controller CPU to receive the bin data.

7. The intelligence system of claim 1, further including a user input to receive an indication of the predetermined direction.

8. The intelligence system of claim 7, wherein the user input includes a compass display in which the predetermined direction is to be identified by sweeping a sector of the compass.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein the preventing includes:

generating bin data that identifies frequency bins associated with RF signals arriving from the predetermined direction; and

receiving the bin data at a controller CPU.

14. The method of claim 1, further including receiving an indication of the predetermined direction at a user input.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein the receiving includes detecting a user sweeping of a sector of a compass display.

9. A method of collecting intelligence comprising:

generating digital data based on received RF signals; and

preventing portions of the digital data that correspond to RF signals arriving from a direction other than a predetermined direction from being processed.

10. The method of claim 9, further including collecting the RF signals in a plurality of parallel channels.

11. The method of claim 10, further including identifying an arrival direction for each of a plurality of frequency bins by determining at least one of a phase difference and a frequency difference between data in the plurality of parallel channels.

12. The method of claim 10, wherein the generating includes, for each parallel channel:

collecting the received RF signals;

generating analog intermediate frequency signals based on the received RF signals; and

generating the digital data based on the RF signals, the method further including converting the digital data into frequency domain data for each parallel channel.