On frequency weighting in autoregressive spectral estimation

This paper treats the problem of approximating a complex stochastic process in a given frequency region by an estimated autoregressive (AR) model. Two frequency domain approaches are discussed: a weighted frequency domain maximum likelihood method and a prefiltered covariance extension method based on the theory of Lindquist and coworkers. It is shown that these two approaches are very closely related and can both be formulated as convex optimization problems. An examples illustrating the methods and the effect of prefiltering/weighting is provided. The results show that these methods are capable of tuning the AR model fit to a specified frequency region.