Patent ID: 8885696

Claim:
A method for using a spectrum analysis and management device, comprising steps of: providing a device including a housing, at least one radio frequency (RF) receiver coupled with at least one processor, and a memory; receiving RF energy measurements from the RF receiver, the RF energy measurements corresponding to at least one signal of interest; determining a geographic location of the signal of interest based on location input data; determining a time associated with the RF energy measurements and converting the received RF energy measurements into spectral representation data; processing spectrum power density data as received and processing in-phase quadrature (I/Q) data by fast parallel adaptive filter processes to generate a power spectrum; analyzing the spectral representation data to identify the signal of interest above a power threshold and to determine at least one signal parameter of the signal of interest; comparing the signal parameter of the signal of interest to signal characteristic listing data in the memory to determine whether the signal parameter of the signal of interest matches corresponding signal parameters in the signal characteristic listing data; calculating signal degradation using hardware parameters, environment parameters and terrain data; identifying the signal of interest in near real-time for the location input data and the RF energy measurements based upon whether the signal parameter of the signal of interest, in combination with the signal degradation, matches any signal parameters in the signal characteristic listing data; determining a modulation type, a protocol, and a symbol rate for each of the identified signal(s) of interest; storing the signal parameter data, the modulation type, the protocol, the symbol rate, the location of the device, and the time associated with the RF energy measurements in a history database in the memory; generating a visual representation of the signal of interest.