APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR DETECTING SIGNALS

• US 20140152811A1
• Filed: 10/27/2013
• Published: 06/05/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 11/30/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute
• Original Assignee: Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute
• Inventors: LEE, Kyung-Hoon, CHO, Hui-Rae, JANG, Jin-Gak, KIM, Ji-Eun, HWANG, In-Ho, KIM, Chun-Soo, KWON, Young-Hyoun, LEE, Jae-Ki, PARK, Hee-Sun, KIM, Jin-Hyun
• Granted Patent: US 9,559,794 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 348/135
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 17/23 Indication means, e.g. displays, alarms, audible means
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 17/309 Measuring or estimating channel quality parameters

Abstract

A signal detection apparatus includes a signal reception unit, an Analog to Digital (A/D) signal processing unit, and a user interface unit. The signal reception unit receives an external signal. The A/D signal processing unit determines whether the received signal is an abnormal signal based on a plurality of signal profiles having different signal characteristics, and obtains the abnormal signal if, as a result of the determination, it is determined that the received signal is the abnormal signal. The user interface unit displays the abnormal signal.

Claims

1. A signal detection apparatus comprising:

a signal reception unit configured to receive an external signal;

an Analog to Digital (A/D) signal processing unit configured to determine whether the received signal is an abnormal signal based on a plurality of signal profiles having different signal characteristics, and to obtain the abnormal signal if, as a result of the determination, it is determined that the received signal is the abnormal signal; and

a user interface unit configured to display the abnormal signal.

2. The signal detection apparatus of claim 1, wherein the signal reception unit includes one or more of a single omnidirectional antenna, a single directional antenna, two or more directional antennas, two or more omnidirectional antennas, and a wired probe.

3. The signal detection apparatus of claim 1, wherein the signal reception unit includes an electronic compass or a gyro module configured to determine a direction and posture of the signal reception unit.

4. The signal detection apparatus of claim 1, wherein each of the plurality of signal profiles includes information about a basic structure of a signal, a characteristic of a source signal based on signal demodulation, and pattern matching based on bit extraction.

5. The signal detection apparatus of claim 4, wherein the information about the basic structure of the signal includes information about a geographical location, start, center and end frequencies, bandwidth, spectral shape, and time domain pattern of the signal, and signal characteristics when the signal is generated and terminated.

6. The signal detection apparatus of claim 1, wherein the A/D signal processing unit includes:

a signal conversion unit configured to convert a signal sample, obtained by digitally converting the signal received by the signal reception unit, into a digital signal in a time domain and a digital signal in a frequency domain;

a profile matching unit configured to determine whether an output signal of the signal conversion unit is an abnormal signal depending on whether the output signal matches any of plurality of signal profiles having the different signal characteristics; and

a signal acquisition unit configured to obtain the abnormal signal from the output signal of the signal conversion unit.

7. The signal detection apparatus of claim 6, wherein the profile matching unit includes:

a signal profile group unit configured to store the plurality of signal profiles having the different signal characteristics;

a profile selection unit configured to select one or more from among the plurality of signal profiles; and

a matching processing unit configured to determine whether the output signal matches any of the selected signal profiles by comparing the output signal of the signal conversion unit with the signal profiles selected by the profile selection unit in response to the output signal of the signal conversion unit.

8. The signal detection apparatus of claim 7, wherein the matching processing unit includes:

an analog processing unit configured to perform analog processing on the output signal of the signal conversion unit; and

a first matching, unit configured to determine whether a characteristic of the output signal of the analog processing unit matches a characteristic of any of the selected signal profiles by comparing an output signal of the analog processing unit with the signal profiles selected by the profile selection unit.

9. The signal detection apparatus of claim 8, wherein the matching processing unit further includes:

a demodulation unit configured to demodulate an output signal of the analog processing unit; and

a second matching unit configured to determine whether a characteristic of the output signal of the demodulation unit matches a characteristic of any of the selected signal profiles by comparing an output signal of the demodulation unit with the signal profiles selected by the profile selection unit.

10. The signal detection apparatus of claim 9, wherein the matching processing unit further includes:

a bit extraction unit configured to extract a bit pattern from the output signal of the demodulation unit; and

a third matching unit configured to determine whether a characteristic of the output signal of the bit extraction unit matches a characteristic of any of the selected signal profiles by comparing an output signal of the bit extraction unit with the signal profiles selected by the profile selection unit.

11. The signal detection apparatus of claim 6, wherein the signal acquisition unit includes:

a sample buffer configured to store the output signal of the signal conversion unit for a specific interval, and to output the stored signal; and

a trigger processing unit configured to trigger the signal stored in the sample buffer, and to output the stored signal if the output signal of the signal conversion, unit is an abnormal signal.

12. The signal detection apparatus of claim 11, wherein the trigger processing unit checks whether the output signal of the signal conversion unit is present at a specific frequency, and triggers the signal stored in the sample buffer based on results of the checking.

13. The signal detection apparatus of claim 11, wherein the trigger processing unit triggers the signal stored in the sample buffer if the output signal of the signal conversion unit has a state different from a normal signal state for a predetermined detection band based on the normal signal state.

14. The signal detection apparatus of claim 11, wherein the trigger processing unit triggers the signal stored in the sample buffer if the output signal of the signal conversion unit is an abnormal signal based on a normal signal state for a predetermined detection band and a list of previously stored abnormal signal profiles.

15. The signal detection apparatus of claim 1, wherein the user interface unit includes:

a sample buffer configured to synchronize an output signal of the A/D signal processing unit with information about a direction of the signal reception unit and information about an image of a camera in the direction of the signal reception unit, to store the output signal and information for a specific interval, and to output the stored output signal and information;

a signal processing unit configured to convert the output signal of the sample buffer into a signal to be shown to a user; and

a display unit configured to display the signal of the signal processing unit on a screen, and to display a spatial spectrogram based on the direction information on the screen.

16. The signal detection apparatus of claim 15, wherein a first of two axes of the spatial spectrogram represents frequency, and a second axis represents direction.

17. The signal detection apparatus of claim 15, wherein the signal processing unit causes the spatial spectrogram based on the direction information, specifically a spatial spectrogram corresponding to the camera image information, to be displayed on the display unit.

18. The signal detection apparatus of claim 15, wherein the signal processing unit causes the spatial spectrogram based on the direction information, specifically the camera image information corresponding to a selected spatial spectrogram, to be displayed on the display unit.

19. A signal detection method comprising:

receiving, by a signal reception unit, an external signal;

determining, by an Analog to Digital (A/D) signal processing unit, whether the received signal is an abnormal signal based on a plurality of signal profiles having different signal characteristics;

obtaining, by the A/D signal processing unit, the abnormal signal if, as a result of the determination, it is determined that the received signal is the abnormal signal; and

displaying, by a user interface unit, the abnormal signal.

20. The signal detection method of claim 19, wherein determining whether the received signal is an abnormal signal includes:

converting a signal sample, obtained by digitally converting the received signal, into a digital signal in a time domain and a digital signal in a frequency domain; and

determining whether the converted signal is an abnormal signal depending on whether the converted signal matches any of the plurality of signal profiles having the different signal characteristics.