Multiresolution wavelet denoising for ultra-wideband time-of-arrival estimation with regularized least squares

Improving accuracy in wireless localization and ranging is a challenging task which often demands an increase in the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). Impulsive ultra-wideband (UWB) technology is a promising signaling alternative that is capable of high-resolution ranging with minimal cost on SNR. Unfortunately, typical UWB time-of-arrival (ToA) estimators are complicated and perform poorly in the low SNR environment. In this paper, we propose a regularized least squares (RLS) approach with wavelet denoising to improve the estimator accuracy at low SNR. Our algorithm estimates the ToA as a by-product of the RLS channel estimator based on a thresholding technique, which is simple and can enable fast, on-the-fly, accurate ToA estimation applicable to real-time application. In addition to devising a threshold selection framework based on the constant false alarm (CFA) criterion, we demonstrate the robustness of our algorithm first by computer simulation, then applying it to a realistic situation of range estimation via the UWB impulse radio. In both cases, our algorithm is shown to supersede both high-resolution algorithms and energy detector in ToA estimation and computational complexity when the sampling rate is available. Furthermore, the CFA criterion is shown to improve the estimator performance as compared to the fixed threshold selection strategy.     

一种通用的卫星导航信号码时延估计误差评估方法

卫星导航信号的码时延估计误差是决定系统服务性能的关键因素,迫切需要对多种不同调制与复用方式的导航信号进行全面的码时延估计误差性能评估,从而为后期的系统应用提供重要的选择依据.为此,本文提出了通用的码时延估计误差评估方法.首先,概括了导航接收机的码跟踪环路模型,根据是否匹配接收以及是否相干处理,将目前的导航接收机归纳为四种类型.其次,在假设码时延估计误差非常小的条件下,分别给出了匹配接收下相干处理和非相干处理时的估计误差以及相互之间的关系;推导了非匹配接收下非相干处理时的估计误差,并讨论了与相干处理时的关系.最后,推导了码时延估计误差的齐夫-扎凯界限,解决了估计误差不满足非常小这一假设条件时的评估.本文提出的评估方法均以导航信号的功率谱密度表示,为信号设计和接收机的研制提供了重要的理论指导,同时也给具体信号的评估带来了极大便利.仿真实验中对新一代典型导航信号的码时延估计误差做了有效评估.     

Necessary conditions for a maximum likelihood estimate to become asymptotically unbiased and attain the Cramer-Rao lower bound. Part I. General approach with an application to time-delay and Doppler shift estimation.

Analytic expressions for the first order bias and second order covariance of a general maximum likelihood estimate (MLE) are presented. These expressions are used to determine general analytic conditions on sample size, or signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), that are necessary for a MLE to become asymptotically unbiased and attain minimum variance as expressed by the Cramer-Rao lower bound (CRLB). The expressions are then evaluated for multivariate Gaussian data. The results can be used to determine asymptotic biases. variances, and conditions for estimator optimality in a wide range of inverse problems encountered in ocean acoustics and many other disciplines. The results are then applied to rigorously determine conditions on SNR necessary for the MLE to become unbiased and attain minimum variance in the classical active sonar and radar time-delay and Doppler-shift estimation problems. The time-delay MLE is the time lag at the peak value of a matched filter output. It is shown that the matched filter estimate attains the CRLB for the signal's position when the SNR is much larger than the kurtosis of the expected signal's energy spectrum. The Doppler-shift MLE exhibits dual behavior for narrow band analytic signals. In a companion paper, the general theory presented here is applied to the problem of estimating the range and depth of an acoustic source submerged in an ocean waveguide.     

基于最大似然的单通道交叠激光微多普勒信号参数分离估计

利用激光对目标微弱振动进行探测有利于获得明显的微多普勒效应,这为精确估计目标微动特征参数,实现对目标的分类和精细识别提供了可能.但对于多散射点或多目标激光探测,信号为单通道多分量微动混合的形式,而且补偿目标主体运动后,数值上相近的微动参数还会导致信号在时频域存在严重的交叠.为从这类混合信号中精确估计各分量的微动参数,本文提出了基于最大似然框架的参数分离估计方法.利用精细化扫描的奇异值比谱法从混合信号中获得目标微动频率,并得到各分量的幅值比信息.推导了微动参数最大似然估计的解析表达形式,根据激光微多普勒信号的特点从频谱能量分布的角度重新设计了似然函数,解决了传统似然函数在激光微动信号中出现的高度非线性问题,降低了初始化的要求,提高了抗噪性能,并采用马尔可夫-蒙特卡罗方法具体实现了参数的估计.在微动参数得到估计的基础上给出了信号的幅值和初相的估计方法.用本文方法对仿真和实验数据进行处理,得到了接近克拉美罗下界的估计结果,验证了方法的有效性.与传统非参数化估计方法的对比结果体现了所提方法对混合微动参数精确估计上的优势.     

An adaptive clutter rejection method based on AR model in color flow imaging

The ultrasound Doppler signal scattered from blood is heavily corrupted by the clutter signal reflected from slowly moving muscular tissue. The Doppler frequency shift of blood flow and clutter in different parts of human body greatly changes. Therefore, if a fixed wall filter is selected, the optimal filtering effect can not be attained. An adaptive clutter rejection method is proposed in this paper, which consists of a weak clutter rejector and a 2-order AR estimator. The clutter and blood power thresholds were preliminary defined in the weak clutter rejector. The echo power is compared with the two pre-defined thresholds, and the result was used to select an appropriate wall filter. The output of the weak clutter rejector is estimated by a 2-order AR estimator and two poles are acquired. The low frequency pole denotes the clutter signal and the high frequency pole denotes the blood signal. Before the AR estimation, a static signal is added to avoid producing split spectral peaks. It is illustrated in the simulation that the proposed method can detect the slower blood flow with smaller variance compared with the traditional wall filtering method.     

A comparison of threshold estimation methods in children 6-11 years of age

Estimating detection threshold for auditory stimuli in children can be problematic because of lapses in attention and the time limits usually imposed by scheduling restrictions or fatigue. Data reported here were collected to compare the stability of threshold estimation procedures in testing children ages 6 to 11 in a three-alternative, forced-choice paradigm. Stimuli consisted of a 1-kHz tonal signal and a Gaussian noise masker, bandpass filtered between 500-2,000 Hz and presented at 25-dB spectrum level. The signal was either presented for 400 ms in the presence of a continuous masker (simultaneous masking) or for 10 ms just prior to a 400-ms masker (backward masking). For each masking paradigm the 79% correct threshold was assessed via each of three procedures: 3-down, 1-up adaptive staircase (Levitt), maximum likelihood estimation (MLE), and method of constant stimuli. Percent correct was measured at the end of the study for a signal 10 dB above the previously determined threshold in order to estimate the most appropriate psychometric function asymptote for fitting data collected via the method of constant stimuli. Both the MLE and Levitt procedures produced equally stable threshold estimates for both conditions and age groups. This was the case despite considerable variability in backward-masking thresholds.     

Spatial filters for pattern detection and image enhancement

A theory of spatial frequency domain filters is presented from the standpoint of leastsquare linear estimation. The general expression of this filter is obtained with few assumptions, thus allowing considerable flexibility in its application. Noise common to pictorial information usually can be described as a mutually exclusive process, whereas much of the available signal processing theory assumes additive noise. Types of pictorial noise discussed in this paper include the background of signal patterns, pattern obscurity, and image modulation due to the recording process. It is shown that the additive noise assumption is valid under certain conditions. The general filter is described in terms of spatial frequency estimates which are conveniently expanded for particular applications. A detection filter for determinative patterns is obtained and compared to the matched filter. A filter is derived to restore patterns degraded by noise and a linear distortion filter.     

Performance analysis of direct-sequence spread-spectrum underwater acoustic communications with low signal-to-noise-ratio input signals

Direct-sequence spread-spectrum signals collected from the TREX04 experiment are analyzed to determine the bit-error-rate (BER) as a function of the input signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) for a single receiver. A total of 1160 packets of data are generated by adding ambient noise data collected at sea to the signal data (in postprocessing) to create signals with different input-SNR, some as low as -15 dB. Two methods are analyzed in detail, both using a time-updated channel impulse-response estimate as a (matched) filter to mitigate the multipath-induced interferences. The first method requires an independent estimate of the time-varying channel impulse-response function; the second method uses the channel impulse-response estimated from the previous symbol as the matched filter. The first method yields an average BER <10(-2) for input-SNR as low as -12 dB and the second method yields a similar performance for input-SNR as low as -8 dB. The measured BERs are modeled using the measured signal amplitude fluctuation statistics and processing gain obtained by de-spreading the received signal with the transmitted code sequence. Performance losses caused by imprecise symbol synchronization at low input-SNR, uncertainty in channel estimation, and signal fading are quantitatively modeled and compared with data.     

Surface acoustic wave devices and applications: 3. Spread spectrum processors

The fundamental principles of spread spectrum signal processing are reviewed and the application of surface wave devices to a number of spread spectrum link configurations are described. Serial processing spread spectrum links have been operating successfully for years providing jam and multipath resistance communications, low spectra density transmissions, and continuous ranging capabilities, but are expensive to implement and require a significant lockup time before communication begins. Surface wave devices are being developed to reduce the lockup time and implementation costs of the standard serial processing receivers by performing as signal synthesizers and receiver synchronizers. In addition, parallel processing surface wave matched filter links with sensitivities, lockup times, and complexities comparable to narrowband links have been demonstrated. The matched filter links are limited to applications where processing gains of 30 dB or less and short codes of 1 000 chips or less are used, but a serial-parallel link utilizing surface wave devices to implement a hybrid matched filter-serial processing technique has been developed to extend the processing gain and code length limit. Each of these applications of surface wave devices is discussed from a systems point of view.     

Receiver structure and estimation of the modulation index for tamed frequency modulated (TFM) signals

Tamed frequency modulation (TFM) is a spectrally efficient constant amplitude continuous phase modulation (CPM) scheme which can be simply realized by using a frequency modulator (FM). In the implementation the modulation index of TFM is calibrated to have a nominal value of 0.5, but due to temperature variations it can drift causing time varying phase jitter. In this paper we present novel algorithms and performance results to measure and control the modulation index in a coherent receiver based on the joint reduced state sequence detector (RSSD) and per-survivor processing (PSP) carrier phase estimation. The modulation index estimator measures phase transitions in the receiver and derives estimates by comparing the result to the coding rule of the TFM signal. The estimator has acquisition and tracking ability, and the current estimate can be used to replace the nominal index value. Our simulation results show that the proposed coherent receiver with the novel modulation index estimator has less than 1 dB performance degradation compared to around 4.5 dB exploiting only the PSP carrier phase estimation.     

Trading detection for resolution in active sonar receivers

This paper proposes an active sonar receivers that offers a smooth trade-off between detection and resolution. A matched filter is the optimal detector of known signals in white Gaussian noise but may fail to resolve the targets if the time separation of targets is less than the mainlobe width of the autocorrelation function of the transmitted signal. An inverse filter achieves optimal resolution performance for multiple targets in the absence of noise, but amplifies the noise outside the signal bandwidth in a manner that makes it impractical in many realistic scenarios. The proposed active sonar receiver, the variable resolution and detection receiver (VRDR) combines the matched and inverse filter properties to achieve a smooth trade-off between detection and resolution. Simulated receiver operating characteristics demonstrate that for a range of dipole sonar targets, the performance of the VRDR is superior to the matched and inverse filter, as well as another previously proposed bandlimited inverse filter.     

多谐波脉冲星信号时延估计方法

针对脉冲星导航技术中延时估计这一关键问题, 提出了频域上直接使用脉冲星信号测量到达时间集合进行时延估计的方法——多谐波脉冲星信号时延估计(MHSPE)方法. 该方法建立在频域上相位时延的极大似然估计的基础上, 通过高次谐波对脉冲星观测信号提取出各谐波相位的极大似然估计, 然后取频谱上各谐波的幅值进行归一化作为各谐波相位的权值, 最后取各谐波相位的加权平均作为该时刻的相位估计. 理论上证得MHSPE算法对相位的估计是无偏、一致的, 相比于频域上一次谐波的极大似然估计, MHSPE方法的信噪比随谐波数m的增加而增加, 当各谐波幅值相同时, 信噪比可提高m_1/2倍; 与脉冲星信号时延的克拉美罗界比较, 脉冲星信号时域的导数在频域上的反映就是各谐波分量的数量, 因此随着谐波次数的增加脉冲星信号时延估计可极大趋近克拉美罗界. 采用RXTE航天器对Crab脉冲星的实测数据检验MHSPE方法的性能, 实验结果表明, 针对低信噪比的脉冲星信号, MHSPE可获得高精度的相位估计, 随观测时间增加, 估计精度快速收敛于克拉美罗界.     

Gram-Charlier matched filter for Shack-Hartmann sensing at low light levels

A study has been made of a Gram-Charlier matched filter for Shack-Hartmann sensing of wave-front slopes. The method is based on modeling the point-spread function by an expansion in terms of Gauss-Hermite polynomials. We present results for several subapertureycoherence area sizes both with and without CCD read noise. A more accurate estimation of the local slopes can be achieved at low light levels in this way than with the standard first-moment estimator.     

基于虚拟时间反转镜的短基线定位研究

海洋的多途效应是影响水声定位信号检测性能的主要因素。为了满足信号检测中的某种"最佳"准则,克服海洋水声信道的多途效应,本文基于信道的匹配滤波器-时间反转镜技术,提出虚拟时间反转结合匹配滤波器构造信号处理接收机的方法。通过计算机仿真和实验数据处理表明,经过基于虚拟时间反转处理的匹配滤波(TR-MF)接收机性能优于传统的匹配滤波(MF)接收机,并且将该技术应用在短基线水声定位系统中,提高了时延估计分辨力,改善了定位精度。     

基于多个小孔径基阵的水下目标宽带波达方位估计方法

本文将多小孔径基阵应用于声纳浮标阵对可疑海区进行快速搜索的研究中,提出了一种基于多个小孔径子阵的宽带目标方位估计方法.该方法采用一种新颖的降秩估计器的信号模型,对多个小孔径子阵的输出信息进行综合处理,然后使用近似意义上的降秩估计器对目标源进行方位估计.所建立的阵列模型中不需要包含有关小孔径子阵之间的任何位置信息,因此,有效地减小了因阵形估计带来的烦杂工作和估计误差对方位估计性能的影响.仿真结果表明,此方法提高了定向精度,给出了稳定的目标方位估计.     

基于扩频码的单载波迭代频域均衡水声通信

单载波时域均衡在长时延扩展水声信道中计算量大,并对接收机参数的选择较为敏感,可靠性低,而正交频分复用信号峰均功率比高、对频率偏移敏感. 针对这些问题,提出基于扩频码的单载波块传输高速率水声通信方法和基于T/4分数间隔迭代频域均衡的接收机算法. 该接收机利用已知扩频码进行信道估计以及对由多普勒偏移引起的旋转相位进行估计,并通过一种低复杂度迭代频域均衡算法改善系统性能. 开展了湖上实验研究,结果表明在浅水1.8 km距离且复杂多径干扰条件下,利用BPSK/QPSK调制可实现10^-2–10^-4的误码率并达到1500–3000 bit/s的有效数据率. 关键词： 水声通信 单载波 频域均衡 迭代处理     

Geoacoustic inversion in a dispersive waveguide using warping operators

This paper presents a single receiver geoacoustic inversion method adapted for low-frequency impulsive sources. It is applied to light bulb data collected during the Shallow Water 2006 experiment. The inversion is carried out by extracting dispersion curves from the received signal, and comparing them to simulated replicas. To achieve dispersion curve estimation in the time-frequency domain, modal separability is improved using a signal processing method called warping. The inversion scheme allows for a reliable estimation of the New Jersey Shelf sediment properties (compressional sound speed and density). It also provides an accurate estimation of the source/receiver range.     

Hedged maximum likelihood quantum state estimation

This Letter proposes and analyzes a new method for quantum state estimation, called hedged maximum likelihood (HMLE). HMLE is a quantum version of Lidstone's law, also known as the "add β" rule. A straightforward modification of maximum likelihood estimation (MLE), it can be used as a plug-in replacement for MLE. The HMLE estimate is a strictly positive density matrix, slightly less likely than the ML estimate, but with much better behavior for predictive tasks. Single-qubit numerics indicate that HMLE beats MLE, according to several metrics, for nearly all "true" states. For nearly pure states, MLE does slightly better, but neither method is optimal.     

一种混响背景下的自适应动目标检测方法

本文提出了一种混响和噪声干扰下动目标检测的自适应方法,其结构为自适应混响抵消器（ARC）加推广的自适应相干累积器（GACI）。用自适应混响抵消实现干扰背景的预白化,用推广的自适应相干累积实现匹配滤波的功能。该方法不需要混响干扰的先验知识,也不需要知道信号参量,就可以实现混响干扰背景下动目标的检测。仿真和试验表明,其具有良好的动目标检测性能,且具有很好的海洋信道适应能力。     

光纤光栅传感信号解调技术研究进展

光纤光栅传感器是一种新型传感器,有着非常广泛的应用前景。限制光纤光栅传感器大量实际应用的主要障碍是传感信号解调,因而,光纤光栅传感信号解调是光纤光栅传感器应用的关键技术之一。本文对现有已报道的光纤光栅传感信号的解调方法进行综述,并归类为:边缘滤波法、匹配滤波法、可调谐滤波法、光源波长可调谐扫描法、射频探测法、光栅啁啾法、CCD分光仪法、干涉法。对各种方法的原理及相关改进方法进行了阐述,并对其优缺点做了比较分析,最后,对光纤光栅传感信号的解调技术发展进行了展望。