Estimating the frequencies of sinusoids at low signal to noise ratios using the principal component method in tandem with the Burg algorithm

The problem of estimating sinusoidal frequencies at low signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs) is considered. The principal component (PC) method has a threshold SNR of about 7 dB. A lowering of this threshold can be achieved if the PC method is cascaded with the Burg algorithm. The reduction is due to the elimination of noise from the noisy data vector, by projecting it on to signal subspace. Simulation results are presented that demonstrate the improvement in performance at low SNRs