Method of adaptive interference mitigation in wide band spectrum

1. A method for filtering a time domain data signal, comprising

receiving from a radio receiving device a digital baseband signal data;

using at least one electronic circuit in a filter device to

double a sample size of the digital baseband signal data by forming an enhanced data set, the enhanced data set obtained by combining samples from a current block of time domain data with an immediately preceding block of time domain data;

apply a windowing function to the enhanced data set;

perform a Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) operation using the enhanced data set which has been windowed to obtain a plurality FFT samples, each FFT sample comprised of instantaneous frequency bin values which include a real in-phase part and an imaginary quadrature part;

calculate an instantaneous magnitude value and an average magnitude value for each frequency bin based on the plurality of instantaneous frequency bin values;

calculate a noise floor based on the average magnitude values of a plurality of the frequency bins;

using the noise floor to identify at least one frequency bin which contains spectral energy associated with an interfering signal;

selectively reduce the instantaneous frequency bin values of the at least one frequency bin that contains the spectral energy associated with the interfering signal;

after said reducing, perform an inverse FFT operation based on the instantaneous frequency bin values to calculate a notched time domain digital data set in which spectral components of the interfering signal have been reduced;

apply an inverse of the windowing function to the notched time domain digital data set.

2. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the instantaneous magnitude values and average magnitude values exclusively comprise frequency bin amplitude levels rather than frequency bin power levels.

3. The method according to claim 1 , further comprising calculating the instantaneous magnitude value for each of the frequency bins using a magnitude estimating algorithm that is computationally less intensive as compared to an actual magnitude calculation in which an exact value of instantaneous magnitude is calculated.

4. The method according to claim 3 , wherein the magnitude estimating algorithm calculates an estimated magnitude value, instantaneous mag_bin(i), for each said frequency bin using the equation:

instantaneous_mag_bin( i )=(max(abs(real),abs(imag))+(min(abs(real),abs(imag))*0.5),

where

max(abs(real), abs(imag) is the larger value selected as between the absolute value of the real in-phase part and the absolute value of the imaginary quadrature part of each FFT sample, and

min(abs(real),abs(imag) is the smaller value selected as between the absolute value of the real in-phase part and the absolute value of the imaginary quadrature part of each FFT sample.

5. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the average magnitude value is calculated by using an averaging filter which calculates an estimated average magnitude for each frequency bin using a computationally less intensive method as compared to an actual averaging calculation in which a true average value is obtained.

6. The method according to claim 5 , wherein the estimated average magnitude for each frequency bin is calculated using the equation

average_mag_bin( i )=(average_mag_bin( i )*(1−α)+(instantaneous mag_bin( i )*α))),

where:

average_mag_bin(i) is the current estimated average frequency bin value for bin i,

instantaneous mag_bin(i) is the scaled instantaneous magnitude value of bin (i), and

α is a weighting factor.

7. The method according to claim 1 , further comprising converting each average magnitude value to log scale to obtain a plurality of log scale average magnitude values, and using the plurality of log scale average magnitude values to calculate the noise floor.

8. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the noise floor is calculated by determining a subset of frequency bins representative of the received signal and noise and approximating their average value.

9. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the identifying of said at least one frequency bin which contains spectral energy associated with said interfering signal comprises identifying those frequency bins in which the average magnitude value calculated for the frequency bin exceeds the noise floor by a predetermined amount.

10. The method according to claim 9 , wherein the selectively reducing comprises:

determining one of a plurality of signal magnitude ranges for each said frequency bin having an average magnitude value exceeding the noise floor by the predetermined amount; and

based on the signal magnitude range determined for each said frequency bin, automatically choosing for that bin an adjustment factor to be applied to selectively reduce the real in-phase part and the imaginary quadrature part.

11. The method according to 1 , further comprising limiting an output sample set produced by the inverse FFT operation so that the output time domain data is limited to include only the middle half of the output samples.

12. A radio receiving apparatus, comprising a radio receiver circuit which converts radio frequency signals to digital baseband signal data;

a filter device which receives the digital baseband signal data and includes at least one processing circuit which

doubles a sample size of the digital baseband signal data by forming an enhanced data set, the enhanced data set obtained by combining samples from a current block of time domain data with an immediately preceding block of time domain data;

applies a windowing function to the enhanced data set;

performs a Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) operation using the enhanced data set which has been windowed to obtain a plurality FFT samples, each FFT sample comprised of instantaneous frequency bin values which include a real in-phase part and an imaginary quadrature part;

calculates an instantaneous magnitude value and an average magnitude value for each frequency bin based on the plurality of instantaneous frequency bin values;

calculates a noise floor based on the average magnitude values of a plurality of the frequency bins;

uses the noise floor to identify at least one frequency bin which contains spectral energy associated with an interfering signal;

selectively reduces the instantaneous frequency bin values of the at least one frequency bin that contains the spectral energy associated with the interfering signal;

after said reducing, performs an inverse FFT operation based on the instantaneous frequency bin values to calculate a notched time domain digital data set in which spectral components of the interfering signal have been reduced; and

applies an inverse of the windowing function to the notched time domain digital data set.

13. The radio receiving apparatus according to claim 12 , wherein the instantaneous magnitude values and average magnitude values exclusively comprise frequency bin amplitude levels rather than frequency bin power levels.

14. The radio receiving apparatus according to claim 12 , wherein the at least one processing circuit further calculates the instantaneous magnitude value for each of the frequency bins using a magnitude estimating algorithm that is computationally less intensive as compared to an actual magnitude calculation in which an exact value of instantaneous magnitude is calculated.

15. The radio receiving apparatus according to claim 14 , wherein the magnitude estimating algorithm calculates an estimated magnitude value, instantaneous mag_bin(i), for each said frequency bin using the equation:

instantaneous_mag_bin( i )=(max(abs(real),abs(imag))+(min(abs(real),abs(imag))*0.5),

where

max(abs(real), abs(imag) is the larger value selected as between the absolute value of the real in-phase part and the absolute value of the imaginary quadrature part of each FFT sample, and

min(abs(real),abs(imag) is the smaller value selected as between the absolute value of the real in-phase part and the absolute value of the imaginary quadrature part of each FFT sample.

16. The radio receiving apparatus according to claim 12 , wherein the at least one processing circuit calculates the average magnitude value by using an averaging filter which calculates an estimated average magnitude for each frequency bin using a computationally less intensive method as compared to an actual averaging calculation in which a true average value is obtained.

17. The radio receiving apparatus according to claim 16 , wherein the estimated average magnitude for each frequency bin is calculated using the equation

average_mag_bin( i )=(average_mag_bin( i )*(1−α)+(instantaneous mag_bin( i )*α))),

where:

average_mag_bin(i) is the current estimated average frequency bin value for bin i,

instantaneous mag_bin(i) is the scaled instantaneous magnitude value of bin (i), and

α is a weighting factor.

18. The radio receiving apparatus according to claim 12 , wherein the at least one processing circuit converts each average magnitude value to log scale to obtain a plurality of log scale average magnitude values, and uses the plurality of log scale average magnitude values to calculate the noise floor.

19. The radio receiving apparatus according to claim 12 , wherein the at least one processing circuit calculates the noise floor by determining a subset of frequency bins representative of the received signal and noise and approximating their average value.

20. The radio receiving apparatus according to claim 12 , wherein the at least one processing circuit identifies said at least one frequency bin which contains spectral energy associated with said interfering signal by identifying those frequency bins in which the average magnitude value calculated for the frequency bin exceeds the noise floor by a predetermined amount.

21. The radio receiving apparatus according to claim 20 , wherein at least one processing circuit selectively reduces the instantaneous frequency bin values of the at least one frequency bin that contains the spectral energy associated with the interfering signal by:

determining one of a plurality of signal magnitude ranges for each said frequency bin having an average magnitude value exceeding the noise floor by the predetermined amount; and

based on the signal magnitude range determined for each said frequency bin, automatically choosing for that bin an adjustment factor to be applied to selectively reduce the real in-phase part and the imaginary quadrature part.

22. The radio receiving apparatus according to 12 , wherein the at least one processing circuit limits an output sample set produced by the inverse FFT operation so that the output time domain data is limited to include only the middle half of the output samples.

23. A filter device for adaptive interference mitigation in a wideband communication systems, comprising

a digital signal processor device which includes at least one processing circuit arranged to

receive a digital baseband signal data;

double a sample size of the digital baseband signal data by forming an enhanced data set, the enhanced data set obtained by combining samples from a current block of time domain data with an immediately preceding block of time domain data;

apply a windowing function to the enhanced data set;

perform a Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) operation using the enhanced data set which has been windowed to obtain a plurality FFT samples, each FFT sample comprised of instantaneous frequency bin values which include a real in-phase part and an imaginary quadrature part;

calculate an instantaneous magnitude value and an average magnitude value for each frequency bin based on the plurality of instantaneous frequency bin values;

calculate a noise floor based on the average magnitude values of a plurality of the frequency bins;

use the noise floor to identify at least one frequency bin which contains spectral energy associated with an interfering signal;

selectively reduce the instantaneous frequency bin values of the at least one frequency bin that contains the spectral energy associated with the interfering signal;

after said reducing, perform an inverse FFT operation based on the instantaneous frequency bin values to calculate a notched time domain digital data set in which spectral components of the interfering signal have been reduced; and

apply an inverse of the windowing function to the notched time domain digital data set.