Power-law processors for detecting unknown signals in colored noise

We propose a new non-parametric adaptive detector for detecting an unknown broadband signal in interference consisting of non-stationary narrowband components and a locally stationary broadband component. An important feature of this detector is that it needs no prior information about the signal or interference. The proposed detector is based on the integration of the non-parametric power law detector of Nuttall (see NUWCDIVNPT Technical Report 10,751, 16 September, 1994) with robust narrowband interference removal and whitening using a multiple taper spectral estimation-based technique. Experimental results indicate that the proposed detector outperforms conventional detectors