Detection and tracking of interferers in a RF spectrum with multi-lane processing

1. An interference detection method for providing information about at least one interference in I/Q data obtained over-the-air or detected on a link between a radio equipment controller (REC) and at least one radio equipment (RE), said I/Q data being provided as a plurality of Fast Fourier Transformation (FFT) streams, said interference causing a peak in said FFT streams the method comprising:

noise filtering a set of said FFT streams into an averaged FFT;

filtering the averaged FFT with a high-pass filter to remove low frequency components, thereby producing a high-pass filtered FFT;

applying a power threshold on the high-pass filtered FFT to select at least one candidate peak having a power greater than said power threshold;

outputting information about said at least one candidate peak, wherein said at least one candidate peak is a potential interference.

2. The interference detection method as claimed in claim 1 , further comprising post high-pass noise filtering said high-pass filtered FFT after said filtering stage.

3. The interference detection method as claimed in claim 1 , further comprising calculating a standard deviation of the high-pass filtered FFT and wherein said power threshold is a multiple of said standard deviation.

4. The interference detection method as claimed in claim 1 , further comprising:

splitting said filtering into multiple parallel filtering sub-stages, each filtering sub-stage of said multiple parallel filtering sub-stages being tuned differently to create a plurality of different high-pass filters;

applying said power threshold in each of said multiple parallel filtering sub-stages to obtain a plurality of candidate peak lists;

merging said plurality of candidate peak lists in a candidate peak merger.

5. The interference detection method as claimed in claim 1 , wherein said filtering the averaged FFT with said high-pass filter further comprises applying a symmetry factor related to a symmetry of said at least one candidate peak thereby compensating for a power shift.

6. The interference detection method as claimed in claim 1 , further comprising grouping ones of said at least one candidate peak into a grouped peak if said ones are separated by less than a maximum peak distance parameter.

7. The interference detection method as claimed in claim 1 , further comprising

repeating said steps of noise filtering, filtering and applying said power threshold for a next set of said FFT streams;

tracking a presence of a tracked peak in said at least one candidate peak of said set and said next set to obtain a tracked peak;

outputting information about said tracked peak.

8. The interference detection method as claimed in claim 7 , wherein said tracking includes using a maximum peak movement parameter to match said at least one candidate peak of said set and said next set.

9. The interference detection method as claimed in claim 7 , further comprising:

accumulating said power of said tracked peak from said set of FFT streams and said next set of FFT streams into an accumulated power;

identifying a status of said tracked peak as declared if said accumulated power is greater than a declare threshold;

wherein said outputting information about said tracked peak further comprises outputting said status of said tracked peak.

10. The interference detection method as claimed in claim 9 , further comprising calculating the standard deviation of the high-pass filtered FFT and wherein said declare threshold is a multiple of said standard deviation.

11. The interference detection method as claimed in claim 9 , further comprising identifying said status of said tracked peak as clear if said accumulated power is smaller than a clear threshold, wherein said declare threshold is greater than said clear threshold.

12. The interference detection method as claimed in claim 11 , further comprising calculating the standard deviation of the high-pass filtered FFT and wherein said clear threshold is a multiple of said standard deviation.

13. The interference detection method as claimed in claim 7 , wherein said tracking said presence further comprises merging adjacent tracked peaks if said tracked peaks are closer than said maximum peak movement parameter by selecting a highest powered tracked peak.

14. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having computer readable code stored thereon for programming a test system to perform the steps of:

obtaining I/Q data;

processing the I/Q data to detect interferences according to claim 1 ;

causing display of a user interface that includes a reporting of said interferences.

15. A test system comprising:

a detector configured to obtain I/Q data;

a processor; and

memory storing instructions that, when executed, cause the processor to carry out the steps of claim 1 .