Patent ID: 8103293

Claim:
A system for detecting and locating wireless communication device use within a geographical area or facility, which comprises: an array of radio frequency (RF) receivers, each receiver being placed in a predetermined location in the geographical area or facility; and a central processing unit, the receivers being in electrical communication with the central processing unit; wherein each receiver includes: an antenna which receives RF signals generated by wireless communication device use; a switchable RF filter bank in electrical communication with the antenna and designed to reject out-of-band subharmonic and harmonic signals; a variable attenuator in electrical communication with an output of the RF filter bank to extend the dynamic range of the receiver and to test for the presence of harmonic distortion effects; a mixer in electrical communication with the RF filter bank to downconvert sidebands of the RF signal received by the antenna; a local oscillator in electrical communication with the mixer; a bandpass filter in electrical communication with an output of the mixer which sets the resolution bandwidth of the system; a detector in electrical communication with an output of the bandpass filter, the detector outputting a voltage proportional to the signal power received thereby, which voltage is proportional to the level of the RF signal received by the antenna; and a microcontroller in electrical communication with the central processing unit, the local oscillator, the filter bank and the attenuator, the microcontroller further converting the output voltage of the detector to a digitized power level measurement.