Tone Detection System Design for Targets with Frequency Drift

Abstract

In this study, 3 methods of tone detection are investigated, the non-coherent averaging method, the power spectral method, and the cross-power spectral method. The target tones are simulated with frequency drift. Analysis is performed to find optimal FFT sizes and number of spectra to average. PD vs. PFA curves are then created and used to compare these methods. This analysis is particularly useful when using high sampling rate detectors to find tones produced with lower quality oscillators that experience frequency drift since using FFTs that are too large or averaging too many spectra may actually decrease detectability.