Further investigation on time‐domain maximum likelihood estimation of chirp signal parameters

Abstract

The time‐domain maximum likelihood estimation of chirp signal parameters is investigated in this study. Three amplitude weighted phase‐based estimators and two phase‐unwrapping algorithms, that is, phase prediction and unwrapping algorithm (PP‐UA) and differenced‐phase prediction and unwrapping algorithm (DPP‐UA) were proposed. The DPP‐UA and PP‐UA have their merits and drawbacks. The authors combine the merits of these two methods and propose a new phase‐unwrapping algorithm, which outperforms PP‐UA and DPP‐UA under low signal‐to‐noise ratio (SNR) conditions. The authors’ further study on the optimal number of initial data sample show that it is SNR‐related and can be determined according to the ‘3 σ ’ rule and the Cramer–Rao lower bound.