Patent ID: 6975948

Claim:
A method of identifying a source of a signal wherein said signal is recorded and then analyzed in order to determine its spectrum, said method comprising the steps of: in parallel with recording said signal, storing parameters significant of the conditions under which said recording is made; after analyzing said signal and determining its spectrum, detecting lines emerging from the background noise of said signal, using a predetermined emergence threshold, comparing each line detected with some or all of a set of signatures of sources identified and inventoried in a database established prior to said recording; for each line detected, and where applicable, selecting signatures that may correspond to said detected line and, as a function of the resulting signature/line pairs, consolidating, resolving ambiguity of, or quantifying the source corresponding to said line; and said signature/line pair being consolidated, where applicable, if only one signature is selected for said detected line, by the following steps: modifying a measurement parameter; comparing a recording corresponding to said modified parameter with the original recording; and if the signal is modified as predicted in the signature retained by modifying the parameter,definitively retaining said signature for said line, and if it is not, quantifying said source corresponding to said line; the resolving of ambiguity corresponding to a plurality of signatures being selected for a line and/or the same signature being selected for more than one line, and comprising the following steps: modifying a measuring parameter; comparing a recording corresponding to said modified parameter with the original recording and analyzing the modification of the signal; searching for signature/line pairs verifying a modification conforming to the observed modification; and if only one signature/line pair verifies the observed modification, retaining that signature for the line in question, if a plurality of signature/line pairs verifies said modification, restarting said resolving of ambiguity by modifying another parameter, and if no signature/line pair verifies said modification, quantifying the source corresponding to said line; said source corresponding to a line being quantified if no signature is selected for said line by the following steps: comparing said line with a greater number of signatures if the first comparison applied to only some of the signatures from said record database; if a signature is then found, where applicable, carrying out a consolidation or resolving of ambiguity step, depending on the number of signatures found; and if not, and where applicable, carrying out additional measurements with different parameters.