A fast, accurate and robust method for joint estimation of frequency and frequency rate

Frequency and frequency rate estimation of linear frequency modulated (FM) signal has been playing important role in applications various engineering fields. A new method based on maximum-likelihood for joint estimation of instantaneous frequency (IF) and instantaneous frequency rate (IFR) is proposed, reducing two-dimensional grid search to one-dimensional, with satisfyingly little loss of accuracy. Both basic and modified algorithm are presented, with an extension for the situation without a priori knowledge discussed. Simulation result validates the excellent performance of the new method, especially in low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR).