Maximum likelihood time delay estimation in non-Gaussian noise

Author

Schultheiss, Peter M. ; Messer, Hagit ; Shor, Gadi

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. Eng., Yale Univ., New Haven, CT, USA

Volume

45

Issue

10

fYear

1997

fDate

10/1/1997 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

2571

Lastpage

2575

Abstract

In a non-Gaussian noise environment, it is theoretically possible to design a delay estimator that performs significantly better than the conventional linear correlator. We study the maximum likelihood estimator for passive time delay in non-Gaussian noise. We show that the form of the best estimator depends strongly on signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), and the estimator optimal at low SNR can fail catastrophically at high values of SNR. The paper uses simulations to examine this sensitivity problem and proposes an ad hoc instrumentation that is reasonably robust over a wide range of SNR values

Keywords

correlators; delays; maximum likelihood estimation; noise; SNR; delay estimator design; linear correlator; maximum likelihood estimator; maximum likelihood time delay estimation; nonGaussian noise; optimal estimator; passive time delay; robust instrumentation; sensitivity problem; signal detection; signal to noise ratio; simulations; Correlators; Delay effects; Delay estimation; Instruments; Maximum likelihood detection; Maximum likelihood estimation; Noise robustness; Signal to noise ratio; Taylor series; Working environment noise;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Signal Processing, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

1053-587X

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/78.640721

Filename

640721