Re: [Discuss-gnuradio] Some misconceptions about the "peak_detector2" block

[Tom Rondeau]

On Mon, Apr 20, 2015 at 12:47 PM, Frank Fu <address@hidden> wrote:

I’ve also been looking for an appropriate fix for peak_detector2.  When I review this thread and the issue tracker, I’m uncertain how the block is supposed to behave.  I think most of the developers have looked at the documentation in the header file, and have tried to make fixes in accordance with it.  Specifically, that the peak search should only be restricted to the range within the look_ahead parameter.  If so, then Achilleas is very close to an appropriate fix, needing only some additional calls to set_output_multiple to prevent hanging. The block would also work fine with a sine wave, as long as the look ahead value was appropriate, like half the period.

As mentioned previously, the QA test may not necessarily be useful, given that the input signal is much smaller than the window.  Perhaps the test file can also be modified to get better results. I’m willing to contribute to a fix and help make the peak detector block more stable, but I would have to know more about how the block should behave.  Any comments or insights are appreciated.

Frank Fu

So I pretty much agree with this now. In the current form of the block, the function of the look_ahead doesn't behave the way that you described here, Frank. However, looking at the (sparse) documentation for this block, I can now see why everyone thinks that's how it's supposed to behave. From [1]:

  look_ahead: The look-ahead value is used when the threshold is found to locate the peak within this range.

And if that's how everyone expects it to behave, which is what I'm hearing, then we should correct that.

Here are a couple of points that I'd like to consider for reworking this block. First, the flowgraph must finish no matter how many items are passed to it. The block was initially designed for an OFDM preamble detector, so we can't have it just waiting around for more samples to come in, which will add to latency.

I think that the variable "look_ahead" should probably be renamed to "window" or something. The documentation for this block also needs a lot of work to avoid ambiguity or confusion about what it's really supposed to do and how it works. Better QA code and an example would be really useful, too.

Finally, I don't think that set_output_multiple is the right answer here. I'd rather it save state between calls to work if it's looking in the current window. We shouldn't have a block wait for thousands of samples (the default look_ahead is 1000) before making a decision. And using set_output_multiple with large values has, in my experience, a performance hit on a flowgraph.

Tom

[1] http://gnuradio.org/doc/doxygen/classgr_1_1blocks_1_1peak__detector2__fb.html

 

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From:   Tom Rondeau
Subject:        Re: [Discuss-gnuradio] Some misconceptions about the "peak_detector2" block
Date:   Mon, 13 Apr 2015 16:54:47 -0400
Achilleas,

I think you've completely failed to understand the issue from my perspective. I do NOT disagree that there is a bug in the code. I also do NOT disagree that most of what you've tried to do in the rewrite is the correct way to rethink the block. What I have a problem with is that you've provided me with a fix that breaks applications that used to run fine, including the QA test.

As for the applications, there's a really simple test you can perform. Apply the peak detector to a sine wave. In the current code, it finds the peak of the sine wave. With the new version, it does not just find that as the peak, but it outputs as though it's found the peak for every length of the look-ahead value. This could be a valid design choice in a peak detector where given a window, always emit the highest value in the window. That is not what this block is supposed to do, nor is the new block behaving consistently in this manner.

As for the QA test, the current tests presents a vector to the block and the block finds the correct peak. With the new code, it doesn't complete. It just hangs. While it is true that stream-based blocks in GNU Radio expect a continuous stream of data, any block that simply fails to complete its processing when the rest of the flowgraph is done is a bug. Instead, we have hooks like set_output_multiple and overloading the forecast function that help us work with the scheduler to make sure everyone gets the right amount of data they require. In this case, you make a good argument that the block should look beyond it's current window to see if the max is in fact reached. If that's the case, then we need to have the block tell the scheduler this. If less data is passed because there is no more data to process and the flowgraph is shutting down, this block too must shut down. It will then do so without providing the right answer. So the QA test will fail -- but it will complete and report failure in the data.

Please understand the above points when reworking your fix.

Thanks,

Tom
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On Fri, Apr 10, 2015 at 4:22 PM, Achilleas Anastasopoulos <address@hidden> wrote:
Hi all,

recently there has been some discussion regarding the peak_detector2 block, both in the github/gnuradio (pull request  404) as well as in the issue tracker (issue 783).

It is now well accepted that this block is buggy: there are cases the work function returns -1, which is a bug (see issue 783 on how to recreate this bug).

I believe however that there is a DEEPER misconception about how this block works/should work that has resulted in some frustration on what an appropriate  fix should be.
In particular there is an insistence that an appropriate bug fix should pass the qa_test of this block and it should be [in the spirit] of the existing algorithm.
In the following I will explain why passing the qa_test is a consequence of the buggy behaviour  of this block and NOT its feature.
In addition I will suggest what a proper behaviour of this block should be, so that others who may want to write their own version of a peak detector find it useful.


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So the peak_detector block is very reasonable in its conception and its name is very informative and appropriate. It works as follows:

Reads the input and keeps track of a running average  (through a single-pole iir filter)

When the current input crosses a  threshold (= average * a user-defined factor) upwards the block enters a search state, where it looks for the maximum value of the input over a window of user-defined length.

This is clearly the intended behaviour of the block according to the documentation (I don't know who the original author is...).

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