The modified autocorrelation technique for parameter estimation of random FH signals

Multiple-hop autocorrelation (MHAC) processing is used for estimating the parameter of frequency-hopping (FH) signals in the presence of broadband thermal noise. The dependence on hopping frequency carrier phase and hop timing is suppressed by power sampling in the MHAC domain, while maintaining signal power and hop-rate information. We propose and analyze a joint recursive signal power and hop-rate estimator, based on maximum likelihood arguments. The conditional mean and variance of the estimator are derived and compared to a similar method assuming a priori knowledge of signal power