Consistent time-frequency representations

The paper develops nonnegative, high-resolution time-frequency representations (TFRs) that correspond with intuitive notions of energy distribution. These so-called consistent TFRs require the desired representation to be consistent with a set of spectrogram-based energy measurements. By formulating the desired representation as the solution to a constrained optimization problem, it can be solved using a gradient-projection technique. The consistent TFR demonstrates superior performance compared to existing techniques on a variety of test signals and biological data. The result is a high-resolution, nonnegative, intuitively-satisfying TFR that should prove to be an excellent tool for exploratory data analysis.