Systems and methods for cancellation of passive intermodulation (pim) for a wireless network receiver

Abstract

There is provided a passive intermodulation (PIM) mitigation module for mitigating PIM within a receiver of a wireless network, the PIM mitigation module comprising: at least one processor executing a code for: receiving transmit signals transmitted by at least one transmission source, receiving received signals received by at least one reception source, computing a plurality of synthetic PIM signals from the transmit signals, wherein each of the plurality of synthetic PIM signals is a respective combination of a plurality of frequency components of the transmit signals, computing a plurality of mitigation weights for mitigating the plurality of synthetic PIM signals, and performing a PIM mitigation process on the received signal with the plurality of mitigation weights to generate clean signals to provide to the receiver.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A passive intermodulation (PIM) module for automatically detecting and providing an indication of PIM interference, the PIM module comprising:
 at least one processor executing a code for:
 receiving transmit signals transmitted by at least one transmission source; 
 receiving received signals received by at least one reception source; 
 computing a plurality of synthetic PIM signals from the transmit signals, wherein each of the plurality of synthetic PIM signals is a respective combination of a plurality of frequency components of the transmit signals; 
 computing a plurality of mitigation weights for mitigating the plurality of synthetic PIM signals; and 
 providing a PIM interference indication from the plurality of mitigation weights. 
   
     
     
         2 . The PIM module of  claim 1 , further comprising a physical user interface for presenting the PIM interference indication and/or for interacting with the PIM module, selected from a group consisting of: a touchscreen, a display, a gesture activation device, and a keyboard. 
     
     
         3 . The PIM module of  claim 1 , wherein the at least one processor further executes a code for providing a remote view of spectral data and extracted Spectral Intelligence (SI) recorded by the PIM module. 
     
     
         4 . The PIM module of  claim 1 , wherein the PIM module communicates with a cloud-based platform that provides a remote view and/or is used for remote management of the PIM module. 
     
     
         5 . The PIM module of  claim 1 , wherein the at least one processor of the PIM module further executes code for recording and providing Spectral Intelligence (SI) and external interference insight. 
     
     
         6 . The PIM module of  claim 1 , wherein a respective PIM interference indication is computed separately from a respective plurality of mitigation weights for each diode generating interference signals. 
     
     
         7 . The PIM module of  claim 1 , wherein a respective plurality of mitigation weights are calculated separately for each respective non-linear PIM reflection of a plurality of non-linear PIM reflections. 
     
     
         8 . The PIM module of  claim 1 , wherein the plurality of synthetic PIM signals are computed by combinations of frequency bands selected from a plurality of the at least one transmission source denoting a predicted reflection of the transmit signals off at least one non-linear PIM reflection element that is received by the at least one reception source. 
     
     
         9 . The PIM module of  claim 1 , wherein providing the PIM interference indication comprises computing and providing an indication of at least one member of the group consisting of: order of PIM interference, frequency of the PIM generating transmitter, and a certain emitting antenna generating PIM in a certain receiver interfered antenna. 
     
     
         10 . The PIM module of  claim 1 , wherein the received signals include PIM created from at least one member of a group consisting of (i) components of hardware of the at least one reception source, (ii) a nonlinear reflecting object in a transmission path of the transmit signals that is reflected to a plurality of reception sources and included in the received signals, (iii) from a plurality of carriers transmitted from a single antenna, and (iv) PIM products created from the transmit signals from a plurality of transmission sources. 
     
     
         11 . The PIM module of  claim 1 , wherein the received signals are divided into a plurality of frequency bins each predicted to include no more than a PIM product generated from a single PIM reflection element, at least one synthetic PIM signal is computed for each group of frequency bins of the transmitted signals corresponding to the respective frequency bin of the received signals, at least one mitigation weight is computed for each received frequency bin, and a PIM mitigation process is computed for each received frequency bin of a plurality of reception sources from frequency bins groups of the transmitted signals with a plurality of transmission sources. 
     
     
         12 . The PIM module of  claim 1 , wherein the plurality of synthetic PIM signals are computed by converting the transmit signals from a time domain to a frequency domain. 
     
     
         13 . The PIM module of  claim 1 , wherein the at least one processor further executes a code for shifting each of the plurality of synthetic PIM signals to an expected center frequency position, wherein the frequency shift is set according to the synthetic PIM signals that have expected center frequency equal to a certain receiving frequency bin center, the amount of frequency shift is set such that the center of bins of the synthetic PIM signal is equal to the center of the receiving bin. 
     
     
         14 . The PIM module of  claim 1 , wherein PIM products in the received signals are created from a plurality of PIM reflection elements, and the at least one processor further executes a code for performing a PIM mitigation process on the received signals when a frequency bandwidth of the received signals is lower enough compared to an inverse of maximum difference in delay difference between a closest and a furthest of the plurality of PIM reflection elements. 
     
     
         15 . The PIM module of  claim 1 , wherein the at least one processor further executes a code for, prior to performing a PIM mitigation process, aligning time and frequency of the synthetic PIM signals and relative to the received signals, and performing the PIM mitigation process on the received signals with the plurality of mitigation weights to generate clean signals to provide to the receiver. 
     
     
         16 . The PIM module of  claim 1 , wherein the at least one reception source and the at least one transmission source operate simultaneously using same and/or co-located antennas, and a PIM product frequency is equal to the frequency of the received signals. 
     
     
         17 . The PIM module of  claim 1 , wherein frequency bins of the plurality of synthetic PIM signals computed from frequency bins of the transmitted signals overlap completely with the frequency bins of the received signals. 
     
     
         18 . A computer implemented method for automatically detecting and providing an indication of PIM interference, comprising:
 receiving transmit signals transmitted by at least one transmission source;   receiving received signals received by at least one reception source;   computing a plurality of synthetic PIM signals from the transmit signals, wherein each of the plurality of synthetic PIM signals is a respective combination of a plurality of frequency components of the transmit signals;   computing a plurality of mitigation weights for mitigating the plurality of synthetic PIM signals; and   providing PIM interference indication from the plurality of mitigation weights.   
     
     
         19 . The computer implemented method of  claim 18 , wherein the plurality of synthetic PIM signals are computed by combinations of frequency bands selected from a plurality of the at least one transmission source denoting a predicted reflection of the transmit signals off at least one non-linear PIM reflection element that is received by the at least one reception source. 
     
     
         20 . A computer program product for automatically detecting and providing an indication of PIM interference, which, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to perform:
 receiving transmit signals transmitted by at least one transmission source;   receiving received signals received by at least one reception source;   computing a plurality of synthetic PIM signals from the transmit signals, wherein each of the plurality of synthetic PIM signals is a respective combination of a plurality of frequency components of the transmit signals;   computing a plurality of mitigation weights for mitigating the plurality of synthetic PIM signals; and   providing PIM interference indication from the plurality of mitigation weights.