Ideal Limiting of Periodic Signals in Random Noise

A method based on Hermite polynomials is developed for analysis of the output resulting from passing Fourier expandable signals and noise through general zero-memory devices. New results are developed for the output time and autocorrelation functions. Special results are generated for an ideal clipper. Techniques for obtaining results for practical cases are discussed. The method itself can be modified and applied to non-Gaussian noise and general nonlinear devices with nondeterministic signals.