A New Method for Detecting the Number of Coherent Sources in the Presence of Colored Noise

In this paper, a new method for determining the number of coherent/correlated signals in the presence of colored noise is proposed which is based on the Eigen Increment Threshold (EIT) method. First, we present a new approach which combines EIT criterion and eigenvalue correction. The simulation results show that the new method estimates the number of noncoherent signals in the presence of colored noise with higher detection probability respect to MDL, AIC, EGM and conventional EIT. In addition, to apply the proposed EIT algorithm to detect the number of sources in the case of coherent and/or correlated sources, a spatial smoothing preprocessing is added. In this case, simulation results show 100% detection probability for signal to noise ratios greater than -5dB. Final version of the proposed EIT-based method is a simple and efficient way to increase the detection probability of EIT method in the presence of colored noise considering either coherent/correlated or noncoherent sources.