Wigner polyspectra: higher-order spectra in time varying signal processing

The Wigner higher-order spectra (WHOS) are defined as extensions of the Wigner distribution (WD) to higher-order statistics domains. A general class of time-frequency higher-order spectra is also defined in terms of arbitrary higher-order moments of the signal as generalizations of the Cohen´s general class of time-frequency representations. For signal processing applications, discrete time and frequency WHOS distributions are introduced and shown to be implemented with two fast-Fourier-transform-based algorithms. One application in which the Wigner bispectrum is applied for the detection of transient signals embedded in noise is presented. The Wigner bispectrum is compared with the WD and simulation results are given