588 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ACOUSTICS, SPEECH, AND SIGNAL PROCESSING, VOL. ASSP-29, NO.

3, J U N E 1981

Algorithms for Ambiguity Function Processing

SEYMOUR STEIN, FELLOW, IEEE

Abstract-Calculation of the complex ambiguity function is viewed as carried out after first translating all the spectrum in s l ( t ) by
the basis for joint estimation of the differential delay and differential an amount f , 3 with peak values occurring when the value for
frequency offset between two waveforms that contain a common com-
ponent plus additive noise. In many applications, the required accuracy
f exactly compensates for the frequency offset from the corre-
leads to a need for integration over long data sets that can become a sponding component in s2 (t). Section I1 discusses the charac-
challenge for near real-time digital processing. The nature of the am- ter of A(T,f) in more detail.
biguity processing is interpreted, and an algorithm approach is shown For given input signal-to-noise ratios (SNR’s) and given input
that minimizes the processing burden over a broad category of applica- bandwidths, the integrationtime T determinesthe accuracy
tions withoutaffecting performance. with which DTO or DFO can be measured. When the opera-
tion in (1) is a cross-ambiguity, the additive noises associated
with s l ( t ) and s 2 ( t ) are usually independent and do not corre-
I.INTRODUCTION late at any values of T , f. Then (1) provides ambiguity lobes
characteristic of only the “signal” component, along with an
WELL-KNOWN application for correlation processingis
additive random component that limits theaccuracy of estima-
the estimation of time delay between replicas of an arbi-
tion of the T , f values at which the lobepeaks. When the oper-
trary (unknown) continuous waveform when these replicas are
ation is an autoambiguity, so that s1 ( t ) and s2(t + T ) represent
contaminated by additive noise [ 11 . Flexible correlation test-
output from a single receiver, both the signal and noise compo-
ing of long data segments at arbitrary time lags has become
nents have an autoambiguity lobe that peaks at T = 0 , f = 0. In
practical with the advent of inexpensive storage of digitized
application, however, interest in such a case lies in regions of
data. Digital calculation at the same time provides high preci- T , f sufficiently away from the origin to avoid the central lobe;
sion estimation of the time delay.
for example, propagation research on signals of convenience
In many radio applications, the problem is compounded by
might use autoambiguity calculation to detect multipath com-
the existence of a frequency difference between the replicas as ponents in the signal, represented by presence of lobes at such
a result of receiver tuningoffsets or because ofdifferential other values of T , f . At such other values, the additive noise
Doppler shifts due to relative motion between the terminals.’ has zero mean autocorrelation, and contributes only a random
For reasons explained later, it is frequently required in these additive component in the result of the ambiguity calculation.
cases to estimate jointly the differential time offset (DTO) and The noise limitationson accuracy oflocation of the peak
differential frequency offset (DFO), in order to measure either (Section 111) then are formally identical to those for the cross-
one adequately.’ For joint DTO/DFO estimation, the natural ambiguity case (with the second SNR taken to be that asso-
generalization of the correlation process is the complex ambi-
ciated with the echo). Hence, we do not refer further to dis-
guity function,
tinctions between auto- andcross-ambiguity calculation.
T As we will show by example, many applicationsrequire inte-
A(T,f ) = j”s l ( t ) s?(t +
0
7 ) exp (-j2nft) d t . (1) gration time T and input bandwidth B that are orders of mag-
nitude greater than the domains of uncertainty of T(DTO) or
f (DFO) that need to be searched;N = lo4 to lo6 data samples
In this expression, s l ( t ) and s 2 ( t ) are complex envelopes of are often involved. When near real-time calculation is desired,
two waveforms that contain a common component, while 7 brute-force calculation even over the limited domains of T and
and f are, respectively, the time lag and frequency offset pa- f is usually totally impractical. Even “fast” techniques like us-
rameters to be searched simultaneously for thevalues that cause ing an FFT convolver for correlation are efficient only when
\A(T,f)l to peak. For f = 0 , the complex ambiguity function results are wanted for all possible values of time lag T within
reduces to the traditional complex correlation function. For the integration time T . This paper describes useful algorithms
f # 0, the computation in (1) can be viewed as a correlation for large N .
In Section 11, we present an intuitive characterization of the
Manuscript received February 8, 1980; revised October 30, 1980. ambiguity calculation process that points the way to efficient
The author is with SCPE, Inc., Newton Centre, MA 02159. processing algorithms. Sections 111 and IV discuss typical pro-
‘We consider here only the narrow-band radio case where all signal
spectral components can be assumed to be shifted by the same value cessing parameters and related aspects of performance. Then,
as the carrier or center frequency.
21n various applications, other common names for DTO are DTOA
(differential time of arrival) or TDOA (time difference of arrival), and 3Note that both positive and negative frequency lines of the complex
DFO is often called FDOA (frequency difference of arrival) or simply envelope aretranslatedinthe same directionbymultiplicationby
DD (differential Doppler). exp (-j27rft).

0096-3518/S1/0600-0588$00.75 0 1981 IEEE

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STEIN: FUNCTION
FOR ALGORITHMS AMBIGUITY PROCESSING 589

Section V describes the. algorithmic approach that preserves all Then, the desired termin the mixing product has the form
the desirable features, with minimalprocessing burden.
u(t) u*(t t 7 - D)exp [ j i n ( f l - f 2 ) t ] exp [-j2nf2 (7 - D)].
11. INTERPRETATION
AS FILTERING
OF (5)
A MIXING PRODUCT When fl - f 2 # 0, the dc term in the product is replaced by
We observe that for each 7,ambiguity function calculation (or “gives rise to”) a sinusoid at the difference frequency (f -
can be regarded as operating on a product waveform (with 7 f 2 ) . The ambiguity operation on the mixing product, 1/T O JT
as a parameter), [ 3 exp (-j27rft) dt, is correspondingly a bandpass filter cen-
r(t;7)= S l ( t ) S ; ( t 7). (2) tered on frequency f,or equivalently a heterodyning ofr(t; 7)
downwardsby an amount f, followedbylow-pass filtering.
We call r(t; 7) a mixing product; it is the complex envelope When f matches fl - f 2 to within 1/T, thefilter has significant
that results if the real bandpass signals represented by sl(t) output, peaking when‘f= f l - f 2 . Note that 7 must also match
and s 2 ( t ) are offset in frequency and combined in amixer, the differential delay D to well within the reciprocal of the sig-
with the difference frequency component extracted. To pref- nal bandwidth 1/B in order that the mixing product itself have
ace the more general statement, consider first an autocorrela- any significant magnitude.The relationships are pictured in
tion function, Fig. 1.
T The filters we have shown are bandpass or low-passintegrate-
L(7) = $[ u(t) u * ( t t 7)d t .
and-dump (I&D) fiters. While an I&D fiiter precisely matches
the specification of the calculation of an ambiguity function,
obviously many other filters willgive a useful result. Indeed,
For typical waveforms that contain no hidden periodicities, if it is only desired to determine D and fl - f2 by finding the
$ u ( ~ )has a single “correlation lobe” peaking at 7 = 0, whose values of 7 and f that cause the filter output to peak, and the
width (versus 7) is of order 1/B where B is the nominal width actual value of the correlation function is secondary, any rea-
of the power spectrum of u(t). We can interpret this result in sonable filter can be chosen to smooth on themixing product.
terms of the mixing product In particular, when the signal bandwidth B is much wider than
the final filter bandwidth (1/T) of the ambiguity calculation,
r,(t; 7) = u ( t ) u*(t t 7) (3)
the digital processing burden can be greatly reduced by realiz-
as follows. For values of 7 around 7 = 0, r,(t; 7) contains a ing the filter as a cascade of successively narrower filters, with
nonzero dc value. The simplest example is that at 7 = 0, the reduction in the sampling rate between stages commensurate
I
product is u(t)12: whose dc (mean) value is in fact the mean with‘ the filtering that has already been accomplished. How-
power in u ( t ) . The product continues to have a dc value for ever, any sample rate reduction must avoid aliasing (foldover)
other values of 7, although the value decreases as 7 increases of any significant nonvanishing spectral components.
away from 0, andeventually vanishes for 7 well outsideof To illustrate this filtering concept, consider the example de-
(- 1/B, l/B). The mixing product also contains a broad-band tailed later in Section V. Assume two l MHz bandwidth re-
term, with generally continuous spectrum covering the range ceived signals plus noise represented by complex samples at a
(-2B, 2B). Theoperation (l/T)I; [ ] dt whichforms 1.25 MHz rate, and assume that the differential frequency off-
J/,(7)from the mixing product can be viewed simply as a low- set can never exceed +1 kHz. For any 7 of interest, the mixing
pass filter, with unity gain at dc and bandwidth of order 1/T. product
Larger T means a narrower filter and less background energy
passed. The background energy is just the statistical fluctua- r(t;7)= SI (t)s Z ( t 4- 7) (6)
tion component in themeasurementof J/,(T). As is well can first be processed by a low-pass I&D filter that integrates
known, the longer oneintegrates, the closer the result is to the over 128 samples at a time. This fiter will have a (two-sided)
“true” value of the autocorrelation f ~ n c t i o n ..~ - 3 dB width of approximately 10 kHz (hence certainly passing
Returning to (1) and ( 2 ) , since s l ( t ) and s 2 ( t ) include noise, up to +1 kHz efficiently), with nulls at multiples of 10 kHz.
r(t; 7) includes broad-band signal X noise and noise X noise The natural output rate (no overlapping of I&D operations) is
products whose level is reduced by the low-pass filter. More- 10 kHz, and there is relatively little out-of-band energy folded
over, consider the case when s1 (t)and s2(t) contain two differ- onto the (-1, 1) kHz band of interest. Any further ambiguity
ently delayed and frequency-shiftedversions of someu (t),say function processing for that value of 7 uses data corresponding
S l ( t > = 4 0 exp W n f 1 t ) + &(t)
only to the 10 kHz sampling rate, a 128-fold reduction in stor-
age and processing requirements from the original 1.25 MHz
s 2 ( t ) = u(t - 0)exp [j2nf2(t - D)] t n2(t). (4) rate.
Note that while referring to down-sampling, we are describ-
ing intermediate data in the computation of A(7, f) at one
4This referenceto the “true” mean correlationover an ensemble aver-
age for a random signal should not be confused with our application ob- Of 7,and Over a limited range O f f - We are not describing
iective. In DTO/DFO auulications. one is usuallv interested only in the how closeh spaced the values of 7 are to be taken. Generally,

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590 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ACOUSTICS, SPEECH, AND SIGNAL PROCESSING, VOL. ASSP-29, NO. 3, JUNE 1981

1
I
where
B = noise bandwidth at receiver input, assumedsame for
both receivers;
p = “rms radian frequency” in the received signal spectrum
(9);
T, = “rms integration time”(10);
y = effective input signal noise ratio (1 3).
By definition

/
/
/ ’
CD)
/

where W,(f) is the signal power density spectrum, as shaped

Fig. 1. Correlation and ambiguity functions. (a) Cross correlation. (b) by the receiver and defined to have zero centroid, and
Cross ambiguity.

the correlation lobe, and from these one can easily interpolate
for even more precision in the DTO estimate. For example, Te = 2n
with three values, a parabolic fit may be used to determine the
location of the peak. With calculations at more than three val-
ues of T , more elaborate interpolation filters can be designed.
The filter interpretation also makes evident another useful where againlu(t)12is defined to have zero centroid.Fora
and exploitable characteristic. Suppose that at some lag value rectangular spectrum, for example,
T , the differential frequency offset that maximizes A ( T ,f ) is 71
p=- (1 1 4
Af = fl - f 2 . When we define a filter centered on some f that fi Bs 1-8Bs
is sufficiently close (within ?l/T) to assure a detectable out-
put, the continuous filter output will represent complex sam- where B, is the signal RF bandwidth, so that
ples of a sine wave at frequency f - Af. This residual frequency
difference can be estimated by using a digital discriminator to
measure the frequency of this sine wave (digitally, by measur-
ing the phase difference between successive samples). If Afis Similarly, for a constant energy signal with ambiguity process-
changing slowly, this measurement may be more convenient ing carried out over onlya segment of length T (a “gated
(and more accurate) than finding the peak by interpolation be- segment”),
tween the outputs of filters computed at several different val- Te = 1.8T (1 2 4
ues off.

111. SIGNAL-TO-NOISE RATIOAND ACCURACY

For each T,f, the output resulting from an ambiguity func-
tion calculation contains a desired signal X signal term, and an The effective input SNR is defined by
output noise consisting of unwanted noise X signal and noise X
noise. In order for the desired lobe peak to be uniquely iden-
L L [L+L+’]
Y 2 Y1 72 YlY2
tified (very low probability of spurious noise lobes exceeding
a detection threshold), the SNR in the output has to exceed where y1 and y2 are the S N R s in the respective receivers (in
about 10 dB. Within this restriction, the errors in locating the the noise bandwidth B).’
lobepeak are due tooutput noise perturbations. The esti-
mates are unbiased and have a variance that achieves the ’Note that y appears in the accuracy formulas always multiplied by
Cram&-Rao bounds when any of several reasonable techniques B, so that the results are the same whether B represents the equivalent
noise bandwidth defined by the signal or some larger bandwidth, so
is used for identifying the apparent location of the peak. The long as the noise term in y always refers to the noise level in the band-
accuracies (standard deviation) are given by width B.
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STEIN: ALGORITHMS FOR AMBIGUITY FUNCTION PROCESSING 591

The quantityBTy can be viewed as the effective output SNR 1 Hz requires an even longer processing time, to the order of
resulting from the ambiguity processing, with y improved by T - 25 ms.
the BT product of the processing. As stated earlier, the quali- A potential problem in processing over very long intervals, as
fication in the stated formulas is that no matter howsmall the in the second example b), is that neither the differential fre-
value of y, BTy is well above unity. While the results are de- quencynor the differential delaymayremain sensibly con-
rived for the case where the input is perturbed only by addi- stant over that long a period if moving platforms are involved.
tive Gaussian noise, because of the large amount of smoothing, If either parameter changes during the interval, the ambiguity
the results apply equally well when SNR’s are computed with function lobe will be smeared. For example, a linear change
respect to any other independent additive disturbances. While in the differential frequency offset will result in amixing
the results aboveare actually lower bounds on the standard product that can be described as a chirp (linear FM) tone over
deviation, it has been shownin repeated experiments that they the interval, rather than a fixed frequency, and the filter re-
can actually be achieved in reasonable implementation,6 even sponses will reflect this as line broadening. It can be shown
when y itself is well below 0 dB. [3] that for a linear change in differential delay over the inte-
When both y1 and y2 are large (well above 0 dB), the third gration interval, thepeak in T ofthecalculatedlobe corre-
term in (13) is negligible; if also y1 = y2 , then y = y1 = y 2 , sponds to a centroid value of the differential delay, where, if
while if one is considerably smaller than the other, the effec- there is any change in signal energy level over the interval, the
tive y is 3 dBabove that smallervalue(e.g., y = 271 when centroid is calculated by energy-weighting the changing delay
y1 << y2 and y2 >> 1). When y1 and y2 are both much less versus time. Presumably, the same is true of the peak in the
than 0 dB, the effective input SNR is approximately f-direction.
In many situations, it will be sufficient to use these centroid
Y = 2YlY2. (1 4) interpretations. However, more elaborate processing (Section
For example, when both y1 and y2 equal -10 dB, y = 0.016 V-C) can compensate for the effects of change. The appropri-
or -18 dB. To cite some specific illustrative values,we con- ate generalization ofthe ambiguity calculations is 1) form mix-
sider two examples, both stated for 0 dB effective input SNR: ing products over theobservation interval with a changing
value of T , seeking a variation that maintains a fixed alignment
a) y = O d B , T = l r n s , B = B , = l M H z
between the desired signal components in the received versions
uDTO = 17.4 ns of s1 ( t ) and s2 ( t ) ;and 2) consider matched filters in which the
value o f f used to define the fiter center frequency is gradu-
uDFO = 17.4 HZ
ally changed, in effect making the filter into a more general
b) y = O d B 7 T = 1 0 s , B = B , = 2 5 k H z matched filter (like a chirp filter). These generalized calcula-
tions recognize that the processing technique builds up coher-
uDTO = 44 ns
ent integration over an interval of length T by compensating
uDFO =Hz.
1.1 for changes in T and f, so that one is really finding a (7,f )
curve that best fits the observed data over the interval (0, T).
Notethemajor difference: in order to approachthe same
Indeed, the optimum approach when parameters are dynamic
uDTO, a narrow bandwidth situation requires very long inte-
is to treatthe entire problem(from RF through final esti-
grationtime,which in turn leads toa very lowassociated
mates) as one of nonlinear parameter estimationover the total
uDFO. For instance, consider an objective of oDT0= 1 p s and
set of observed data. However, the problem often has to be
uDFO = 1 Hz, on a 1 MHz bandwidth signal at input SNRs of
partitioned because of the mass of data that wouldbe involved,
y1 = y2 = - 10 dB (y = - 18 dB). The value T = 1 ms wouldre-
and the practical solution is a measurement system whoseout-
sult in accuracies 9 dB poorer than a),
puts can in turn be used for nonlinear parameter estimation
uDTO = 140 ns over even longer intervals.
uDFO = 140 HZ.
Iv. ADDITIONAL
CHARACTERISTICS O F AMBIGUITY
Because of the wide bandwidth, the uDTO goalcan still be CALCULATIONS
FUNCTION
achieved handily with T = 1 ms, but ODFO requires more pro-
We describe here some additional aspects of ambiguity func-
cessing. However, even the uDTO statement is too facile, since
tion analysis that often arise in particular applications.
it is “achieved” at a value BTy = 12 dB which may be marginal
for spurious peak considerations as cited earlier. For the latter
A. Predetection versus Postdetection Processing
purpose, a more desirable effective processing SNR would be
BTy = 20 dB, achieved by increasing the processing time T to Up to this point, we have been discussing so-called predetec-
T = 6 ms. The value UDTO is then decreased to about 56 ns tion processing. The ability to correlate is based on a perfect
and uDFO is decreased to uDFO = 9 Hz. To reduce uDFO to match-up (to within a constant phase) of two versions of the
same RF or IF signal, and is totally independent of the de-
‘The accuracy formulas areverysimilar to familiar radar accuracy tailed signal contents. In some applications, one might instead
formulas (e.g., [2] ) for matched-filter measurement of echo delay and consider first demodulating the RF (or IF), followed bycorre-
Doppler shift. The effective SNR is 3 dB smaller than in the usual radar
statements because here both inputs to the correlator are noisy. A di- lation of the results. This results in a loss in potential accuracy
rect derivation has been shown for theDTO problem [ 31 . in most applications for several reasons.
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592 IEEE TRANSACTIONS O N ACOUSTICS, SPEECH, AND SIGNAL
PROCESSING, VOL. ASSP-29, NO. 3, J U N E 1981

1) At low SNR’s, detection can further lower the SNR ap- narrow-band interferers willhave to be based on differential
preciably, particularly FM if demodulationmust be usedfrequency resolution, as available through motion of either the
rather than AM demodulation. This problem would be partic- emitters or receivers. For example, if the desired emitter is in
ularly severe at below unity RFsignal-noise ratios. high speed motion while most of the interfering emitters are
2) If there is any multipath associated with either received fured, the potential fordiscrimination is greatly enhanced.
signal in a crossambiguity application, the demodulated signal Even when lobe masking is not an issue, the energy level of
likely will be distorted differently at the tworeceivers, leading the interferers always contributes to output noise. That is, an
to a significant reduction in correlation. In contrast, predetec- ambiguity lobe for a desired signal is built up in value by co-
tion processing may quite well result in well-separated and dis- herent addition over the processing time T. Any other signal
tinguishable ambiguity lobes. This concern is greater for con- present that does not have a significant lobe in that ( 7 , f ) re-
tinuous or high-duty cycle waveforms than it is for pulsed or gion nevertheless builds up a value noncoherently versus T ,
low-duty cycle waveforms. just as does noise. Hence, any interference energy present in
3) Postdetection processing of the signals would completely either receiver input will show up in output noise, in interferer
eliminate carrier frequency shift, eliminating the possibility of X interferer, interferer X noise, or interferer X signal terms.
DFO measurements when these may be useful to system appli- Each term represents a different kind of broad-band spectrum
c a t i o n ~ . ~ Iwould
t in the mixing product (e.g., a narrow-band interferer present in
also eliminate the possibility of using the
differential Doppler as a means of separating multiple ambi- both receives contributesabroad-bandspectrum of width
guity lobes (discussed below). double the interferer bandwidth). The BT product processing
Nevertheless, under some circumstances, postdetection pro- improvement applies to these interference termsjust as it does
cessing may be used. The processing reduces to correlation, to the additive wide-band noise. Thus, any unremoved interfer-
but the basic formulafor oDTO still applies, with all band- ence power in the acceptance bandwidth of either receiver
width and SNR parameters now describing the demodulated shouldbeincluded in calculating the input SNR, y1 or y 2 .
signal. Realistically, the interference energy is significant only if it is
at least comparable to the total additive noise energyin the
B.Interference bandwidth to which the signal can be filtered. If the latter is
Since the DTO/DFO processing is independent of signal 1 MHz, for example, a 10 kHz bandwidth interferer willbe
structure, an interferer present within the receiver bandwidth significant if the interferer is 20 dB above the noise level in its
(in both receiver inputs, for cross-ambiguity processing) is as 10 kHz bandwidth; and a 1 kHz bandwidth interferer only if it
valid a signal for ambiguity processing as is the intended signal. is 30 dB above noise in its local domain.’ Since loss in y can
Hence, it will give rise to its own ambiguity lobes. Frequently, only be compensated by using greater processing time, which
these are quite distinct in DTO or DFO from those of the in- is usually undesirable, identifiable in-band interference should
tended signal, and may be properly interpreted from refined be eliminated to the greatest extent possible, by preprocessing
estimates on each lobe; in the latter case each interferer pres- prior to the DTO/DFO measurement system.
ent increases the processing burden proportionately.’ While excision of interferers by use of notch filters” may
If theinterferer is “close” to the desired emitter in both cause signal distortion, there is usually little effect on DTO/
DTO and DFO, its ambiguity lobe may overlap and mask or DFO accuracies (relative to the accuracies achievable in the ab-
confuse the lobe for the desired signal. Since closeness in both sence of interferers). Excision will reduce the amount of use-
DTO and DFO usually implies the interferer being physically ful signal energy. Moreover, if one receiver output is filtered
close to the desired signal transmitter as well as at the same differently from the other, some of the signal energy will no
frequency, this will often not be the case because of the inter- longer correlate and will effectively be converted to noise en-
ference they would cause to each other. ergy. Additionally, if differential Doppler shifts of the re-
One common interference situation is that of narrow band- ceived signals arelarge, then even when the same filtering is ap-
width interferers when one is trying to process wider band- plied to both received signals, it may cover noncorresponding
width signals. The ambiguity lobe of a narrow bandwidth regions of the signal spectrum and still increase the effective
interferer may be quite extended as a function of 7 . For ex- noise level.
ample, 10 kHz bandwidth implies 100 ps nominal delay width As a practical matter, these considerations are important
of the lobe, and 2 kHz bandwidth implies 500 ps width. These only when a large total fraction of the signal band is being ex-
values are large enough to bracket significant DTO ranges in cised to delete interferers. In fact, when the signal spectrum is
which the desired signal lobe may fall, and imply that, most of roughly uniform over the band, the ratio of signal energy to
the time,any use of lobe separation to discriminate against
’For a very narrow-band interferer, the DFO of interest may lie out-
side the spectrum of the interfererX interferer term, in which case that
71n applications like sonar, with signal bandwidth of the orderof the term does not contribute to the output noise over the lobe of interest.
center frequency, Doppler effect will be observed as compression or l o u s e of notch filters is intuitive. More sophisticatedapproaches,
expansion of the time base, and hence can still be observed on post- such as the Wiener filter t o minimize the mean-square error relative t o
detection waveforms. the desired signal, end upwhitening the total undesired energy. When a
‘At least until it is identified as an interferer, after which it can per- narrow-band interferer is very strong in a localized spectral domain, the
haps be rejected and only the desiredsignal lobe parameters investi- Wiener filter essentially places a notch over that localized region inso-
gated (or tracked, as discussed in Section V). far as the signal is concerned.

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STEIN: ALGORITHMS FOR AMBIGUITY FUNCTION PROCESSING 593

additive wide-band noise energy is roughly the same in any Analogously, if the band is divided into n segments, each
spectral subband as in the whole band, and y is actually unaf- with noise bandwidth Bp = Bln and rms radian frequency&, =
fected. However, y then refers to a smaller bandwidth, and p/n, the averaging of DTO and DFO estimates fronn such sub-
hence the BT product of processing is smaller. For example, bands, each integratedover time T, would yield
dropping 50 percent of the band deteriorates the processed
SNR by about 3 dB (aside from eliminating interferers), and
dropping 75 percent of the bandcauses 6 dB deterioration. In
addition, the DTO suffers directly from diminution of therms (19)
radian frequency P, if the band occupancy is significantly com-
pressed. Interestingly, it is the rate of variations implied by and
the occupied signal band, not the solid occupied bandwidth,
that governs this last effect. Thus, /? will actually increase
slightly in value if the interior portions of a rectangularsignal
spectrum are deleted, and only the extreme outer portions re- (20)
main; on the other hand, it will certainly diminish if a solid Here the DFOestimateswould not deteriorate through the
half of the band is excised, noncoherent averaging but DTO would. Incidentally, it should
C Use of Signal Subbands or Time Segments be recognized that coherent combining of the subband inte-
grals will involve not only their complex envelope values but
Another approach to eliminating narrow-band interferers is also the subband center frequency information (i.e., the values
to process several interference-free fractions of thesignal band from the subband integrals must be added as data on spaced
independently, and then combine theresults. Use of subbands subcarriers).
could also be attractive from an acquisitionltracking point of
view, since the subbands have wider correlation lobes, making V. PROCESSING ALGORITHMS
them easier to find and track. The time-domain analog is to
We now describe an algorithmic approach for efficient digital
process cross-ambiguity functions for time segments of some
ambiguity processing in applications requiring long data seg-
length T p = Tln, and then to combine the results over n seg-
ments. To be concrete, we will consider an example tailored
ments. We discuss both conceptshere.
to thewide-band examplecited earlier:
The time-domain version is perhaps easiest to picture. One
problem is that to avoid identifying spurious lobes from exam- signal bandwidth B = 1 MHz
ination of a time record of length Tp,BT, y must be reason- sampling rate (complex)f, = 1.25 MHz (Ts = 0.8 p s )
ably high, say exceeding 15 dB. If this is achieved, however,in accuracy requirements:
principle the DTO estimates can be made from individual sub- DTO = 0.1 p s
recordsand averaged without loss ofaccuracy.Thus, for a DFO = 1 Hz
subrecord of lengthTp,the accuracy of aDTO estimate is maximum DFO uncertainty = +1 kHz
integration time T M 100 ms.
Later, we shall comment aswell on a typical narrow-band
and averaging n such estimates, over a total duration T = nTp, example suchas cited earlier.
will reduce the standard deviationto We will define two phases of processing that are generally
needed (as in many estimation problems), which we term re-
spectively the coarse (or acquisition) mode and the fine (or
tracking) mode. The coarse mode generally involves short in-
tegration time, but a search over a wide domainin T and f that
Thus,noncoherentcombining (averaging of the DTO esti- typically can efficiently employ FFT convolution techniques.
mates) gives precisely the same result as obtainedfromco- The burden is made tolerable by the short integration time,
herentintegration over time T (but rememberthe caveat and by the limited use of this mode for initialization; its pur-
BTpy >> 1). Unfortunately, the same is not true for DFO es- pose is to narrow the domain in T , f that has to be examined
timates, for whichwe would have in the fine mode. In turn, the fine mode is the workhorse,
containing the long integrations. that result in DTO/DFO esti-
mates with desired accuracies; its processing burden must be
minimized, and it is here that we use the cascade filter concept
and of Section I1 with great effect. In.an application where esti-
mates are repeated or updated over longer intervals, the out-
put parameter data can be entered into tracking (predictive)
loops, so that it is self-sustaining (hencethenametracking
Thus, for DFO, one would lose accuracy by the factor n by mode), where reinitialization is required only to recover from
not coherentlyintegrating over the full T-length interval. a break in the data.

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594
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ACOUSTICS, SPEECH, AND SIGNAL
PROCESSING, VOL. ASSP-29,
NO. 3, JUNE 1981

The fine mode is described first, under the assumption of time (real time = clock time of the original analog data). This
constant DFO over each integration interval, and then the gen- filter will have an output rate of about 10 kHz, a -3 dB band-
eralization for coping with varying DFO is described briefly. width of about 10 kHz (+5 kHz) and first nulls at k10 kHz.
Subsequently, we describe the coarse mode. It will pass the desired difference frequency (no greater than
+1 kHz) with less than 0.2 dB loss (by contrast, integration
A. Fine Mode (Constant DFO) over 256 points, resulting in a filter with -3 dB bandwidth of
As stated, we take significant advantage here of the mixing 5 kHz, would imply a possible loss up to 0.6 dB). Thus, in
product, cascade filter concept. We will define a two- or three- sampled data terms, for each m of interest we form the mixing
step cascade, the first step of which is a simple integrate-and- product
dump (I&D) filter operating on the mixing product for each
value of T that needs to be considered. Forming the mixing rl(n;m)=sl(n)s:(n+m) (22)
product (one complex multiply perinput sample) and accumu- and the I&D filter operation,
lating (one complexadd) is about the minimum processing kN, + N ,- 1
burden at the input data rate with which one can perform a
useful function. More burdensome processing is then per-
r2(k;m)=
n = kN,
c
r1(n;m) (23)
formed, but at the much lower I&D output rate. Clearly, the
number of values of T that must be considered must be small, where N 1 = 128 and k indexes the “output” sequence r 2 . The
andthis is the function of the coarse mode or of tracking values r2( k ; m represent ) sampled values every 102.4 ps of the
mode predictive operation. complex envelope of a fdter output that contains the desired
1) Step 1-PartialCorrelationwithBandwidth Reduction: difference frequency component within +1 kHz around zero.
The two input complex envelopes s1(t) and s2(t) are sampled Since the filter’s first nulls are at k10 kHz, the filter output
at times t = nT,, resulting in data streams {sl(n)}and {s2(n)}. sample rate of 10 kHz is below an effective Nyquist rate. If
There is no loss in generality in assuming that the sets of sam- the sequence of samples is used for further filtering, some sig-
ples are taken simultaneously for the two signals. The sampled- nal spectral foldover and aliasing will result. However, spec-
data version of the ambiguity computation defined in (1) is trum folded over into the interesting part of the frequency do-
main (from -1 kHz to +I kHz) originates at multiples of 510
RN+N-1 kHz, where the I&D filter nulls occur. A straightforward cal-
AR(m,p)=
sl(n)s;(n tm)exp culation of the energy folded over from these regions, as
n=RN
weighted by the [(sin x)/x] fdter power response, shows a
(2 1) negligible (<0.1 dB) increase for the additive noise compo-
In this representation, the ambiguity function is calculated at nents, while the self-noise resulting from the broad-band en-
discrete time lags, T = mT,, and at frequency offsetsf = p/QT,. ergy of the mixing product is more than 20 dB below the sig-
The designation A R denotes that this is the Rth successive nal level.’’
block computation of the ambiguity function since the begin- For each value of 7,the process just outlined requires calcu-
ning of the data record. For our wide-band example, the size lation of a mixing product and a 102.4 y s partial-correlation
of each data block is N = f,T = 1.25 (10)” The values of the sum (128 samples at 1.25 MHz). Assume, for reasons described
ambiguity function at values of T,f other thanthe discrete grid later, that we need to do this in the fine mode for three values
set are available by standard interpolation, as we outline later, of T that bracket the estimated correct value. If performed in
so that, in principle, use of a grid in no way hinders achieving real time, the processing burden is a 3.75 MHz complex multi-
the predicted accuracies. We assume use of frequency values ply and add rate and the output data rate will be only 10 kHz
spaced by 5-10 Hz, in order to simplify final interpolation to (complex) for each value of T, or a total of less than 30 kHz
the desired 1 Hz range. This in turn implies a value Q % 217 or complex data rate for further processing.
218. Even if the exponentials do not themselves need to be 2) Steps 2 & 3-Detailed Ambiguity Calculation: The re-
represented to this 18-bit precision, indexing a table could be mainder of the ambiguity calculation, at each delay T = mT,,
awkward for this large a value. Moreover, if implemented di- requires the computation of the forms
rectly, (21) requires two fullcomplex multiplies per input RK+K-1
point for each value of p and m. Degrading the frequency A ~ ( m , f=) r 2 ( k m) exp (-i2TW”’ (24)
resolution and assuming a greater interpolation burden (which k=RK
is generally an unfavorable tradeoff, as we indicate later) for the selected values off, where Tj = 102.4 ys and the index
would reduce the value of Q and the number of values of p k represents samples occurring at a 10 kHz rate. Each value of
over which the computation needs to be done, but would not ‘f can be viewed as defining a bandpass I&D filter centered on
reduce the number of operations for each value of p and m. that value off. If we specifically select
Instead, since the DFO uncertainty is so low compared to
the sampling rate, we can simply form the mixing product for K = 2‘’ = 1024
each m of interest (each T ) , and apply as the simplest form of
low-pass filter an unweighted integrate-and-dump (I&D) filter. “With a significant increase in processing burden, overlapped win-
dowed filtering of mixing products could be introduced to further re-
For this purpose we accumulate (add) the mixing product over duce the foldover noise and, as well (because of filter bandwidth broad-
blocks of 128 samples each, representing T I = 102.4 ys of real ening), the attenuation of the desired spectral line.

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UITY FOR ALGORITHMS
STEIN: 595

we represent an integration interval of T = KT: = 104.9 ms. where K = 64. The index q denotes the successive samples of
The basic resolution for a trigonometric look-up table would the filter output complex envelope.
be f, = 1/T = 9.5 Hz. The trigonometric coefficients would In the third step, then, the ambiguity surface will be calcu-
correspond to multiples of this value, f = uf, = u/T, and have lated by setting narrower band filters on the 153 Hz sequence
the form (r3(q, u , m)}. We can suppress the u-dependence in r3 hence-

exp (-j2n F). forth. Letting T: = 6.55 ms be the sampling interval at this
rate, we have

Thus the look-up table would have 1024 entries (or 256if sine
and cosine for only one quadrantare represented in the table).
A number of interesting alternatives also present themselves where Q = 16, so that QT: = 104.8 ms. Now we select as val-
here. For example, by increasing K in the trigonometric co- ues o f f the set f = p/aQT: so that for a = 1, integer values of
efficients to 2048 or 4096 but keeping the sameoverall in- p define filters spaced by slightly under 5 Hz, and larger inte-
tegration time(block length), wecan define filters spaced ger values of a correspond to finer-spaced filters (or again, an
5 Hz or 2.5 Hz apart, respectively, although the basic reso- FFT can be used). The ambiguity calculation, for a given p,
lution is still only 10 Hz. (This is the familiar step of zero- becomes
paddingaDFT to give closer line spacing.) Thiscould sim-
plify the interpolation for a final estimate of DFO, at the cost
of a few more filter calculations at the 30 kHz rate (for three
values of 7). Another alternative would be an FFT over the
entire 1024 point data block, thusgiving for each 7 all possible It should be noted that the actual frequency at which the am-
filters at 9.5 Hz spacing over a 10 kHz domain. The FFT will biguity function is being calculated from the total three-step
be computationally efficient as soon as more than about five sequence is the sum,
such fdters are wanted (say, to facilitate final interpolation). I.1 U
Again, spectrally overlapped filters can be obtained by zero- -t- Hz
aQT:
8KT:
paddingand use of largerFFT’s. Three 1024-point or even
4096-point FFT’s per 100 ms are well within the domain of for the sample parameters given.
readily available high-speed peripheral processors for real-time The fractional increase in complex computation rate due to
implementation. doing the overall computation in three rather thanin two steps
Yet another approach is the equivalent of a Zoom FFT op- amounts to about 153/10 000 or only about 1.5 percent. It
eration (but within the same overall resolution in the case at can actually lead to a saving when many points needto be cal-
hand). Step 2 can be limited to being only another interme- culated on the ambiguity plane to achieve accurate interpola-
diate step in data reduction and in frequency resolution. For tion of the DTOlDFO estimates from points on the sampling
example, suppose the DFO is being tracked to within + l o Hz. grid.
Then we candefinea set ofbandpass I&D filters centered Forthe particular parametersofthese calculations, the
roughly10 Hz apart,withbandwidthsaround100-200Hz, breakdown into a Step 2 and a Step 3 calculation is probably
and implement for Step 2 that filter centered closest to the an overkill. With not much change in parameters or in desired
last known DFO estimate. Again, the filter willpass the de- accuracy,thebreakdowncanlead to significant benefits; it
sired tone with less than 0.2 dB loss, and fold in a negligible can also be quite beneficial when “acceleration filters” are in-
amount of broad-band noise and signal products. Its process- troduced into the processing, a topic discussed later.
ing is simply B. Interpretation of Fine Mode Calculations
qK+K-1 Next, we address the question ofjust how many points need
r3(q,f;m) = rz(k;m)
exp (-j2n.”;) (25) to be computed on the ambiguity plane in the fine mode, and
k=qK
how DTO and DFO are extracted from the results. First, sup-
where the {r3}are values of the complex envelope of the filter pose the desired accuracies and precisions are no finer than the
output relative to its centerfrequency f. A convenient value is spacing between grid points on theambiguity plane, as defined
K = 64, giving - 3 dB filter bandwidth of 153 Hz, and output by integer values (m,p) atStep2. Then calculations are
sampling rate also 153 Hz, corresponding to integration over a needed only %tthe point (m,p ) that is closest to the best prior
total of 6.55 ms of real time. For this calculation, the discrete estimate (?, f ), and at the points on either side in the 7 and f
values off can be selected as one of the set f = u/8KT,’, which direction as diagrammed in Fig. 2 (weassume the rate of
are separated by 19 Hz (or again, even finer spacings can be change of these parameters to be small enough that they will
used). With u representing the particular one of these frequen- not change by more than one grid spacing from the previous
cies that is closest to the estimated DFO, the calculated values estimate). Thus, one would compute A R at the nine pairs de-
would be the set *
fined by m ,m l combined with p, p 5 l . These discrete val-
ues of 7,f a r e already sufficiently precise so that it would suf-
qK+K-1
r3(q, u;m)= r,(k;m) exp fice to select thecoordinatescorresponding to the largest
k=qK magnitude of AR as the parameter estimates. If the selected

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596 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ACOUSTICS, SPEECH, AND SIGNAL PROCESSING, VOL. ASSP-29, NO. 3 , J U N E 1 9 s i

ff or p changes by no more than one increment from block to

block guarantees that the appropriate sets of data will always
be available. Another approach tof-domain interpolation is to
use time weighting (windowing)as part of thecalculation, thus
sacrificing some resolution and some SNR in each calculation
because of the widened filter bandwidth but assuring adjacent
nonzero values that can be used in a standard interpolator.
When we estimated the Step 2-3 processing burden earlier, it
(m-l)T5 mT, (rn.llTs was cited for three values of m, and for one value of p for each
Fig. 2. Ambiguity plane-points of computation. m. Now, we have indicated two additional values of frequency
(p t 1, p - 1) at each m value.These additional valuescan
value of m or p differs from the last previous estimate, in a clearly be only Step 3 calculations, which add negligible bur-
continuing series of estimates, the next calculations would be den to thatestimated earlier.
made on a set of points shifted to center on the new values. A In a narrow-band example outlined later, the parameters are
problem with this approach, although it is simple, is that the such as to require more elaborate interpolation.
output DTO and DFO estimates would change stepwise, while
the true valuesarechanging continuously. Without implying C. Parameter Changes During Integration Interval
any greater accuracy, it is desirable to have finer grained esti- The basic ambiguity function calculation represented by (1)
mates, particularly if they are used to drive parameter tracking or (21) assumes that DTO and DFO remain constant over the
loops with the continuous loop outputs usedas thesystem total integration interval. Obviously (except for zero Doppler
readout. shift), theseassumptions are incompatible in the strictest
Finer grained data implies interpolation among the discretely sense, since a nonzero differential Doppler shift implies a non-
calculated ambiguity values to determine location of the peak zero rate of change of DTO. We have alreadyoutlined the
of the surface. However, we must recognize for these purposes concept of using tracking loop predictionsto provide more ac-
a difference in the character of the ambiguity functionsurface curate compensation for changing delay or changing Doppler
in the 7- and f-directions. In the 7-direction, the lobe widthis shift in a sequenceofparameter estimates. Herewe outline
defined by the reciprocal bandwidth of thesignal so that, with possible elaborations in the processingwhen such changes
T, smaller than the reciprocal bandwidth (as it must be, if Ny- are rapid enough to possibly impact on the accuracy of the
quist rate sampling rules have been observed), significant val- calculation.
ues are likely to be found over regions fTs from the peak. First, consider differential delay. Assume there exists an es-
Hence, we can feel confident that some higher ordercurve can timate ~ ( 0 )at the beginning of a processing interval (0, T ) ,
be used for interpolation to find the peak in the 7-direction; in and an estimate of how 7 changes over the interval. Then, in-
particular, acurvefit assimpleas a three-point polynomial stead of using fiied values of m in the ambiguity calculation,
(parabolic) fit may be adequate, since the ambiguity function we can let m vary from block to block in the Step 1 calcula-
hasparabolicbehavioraround the peak(zero derivative) in tion in (23), changing discretely at time blocks of 102.4 ps,
both the T and f directions (but for high accuracy, a higher or- but kept constant within each block. (One could for this pur-
der interpolation may benecessary). In the f-direction, the pose choose an even shorter time block for the Step l calcula-
lobe is created by the integration and when the lobe happens tions, or even interpolate between values of m to obtain values
to bealmostcentered in a particular filter,theadjacent f- of r2 for time delays that more precisely match the predicted
direction values may be near zero (a null of the sin x / x filter trend.)
response). Hence, in the f-direction, it may be preferable to Steps 2 and 3 also require compensation for the predicted
usethe adjacent values only to assure that of’the three adja- variation in differential Doppler shift. If we confine discussion
cent f-domain values, the value expected to be the largest is to at most a constant acceleration, the appropriate computa-
indeed the largest; and then to estimate the DFO by using the tion is to replace the previous “Doppler filters” by accelera-
phase-change(discriminatorinterpretation)from successive tion Jilters (really Dopplerplusacceleration filters) of the
ambiguity surface calculations, as outlined earlier in Section 11. form
The discriminator calculation can be described as follows. Let
A R(m, p ) and AR + *(m,p ) be the values calculated at (m,p ) J[] exp (-12lrft) exp ( - j m t 2 )d t .
for the Rth and (R t 1)st intervals (each T = 100 ms long in
our example). Then the frequency offset from the value de- We assume the Step 2 and Step 3 mode of computation. In
noted by p is estimated by Step 2, in our example, we applied a 153 Hz bandwidth filter
with center frequency selected from a set of values spaced by
19 Hz. Suppose thatthe differential Doppler will not vary
over the total fractional second integration interval of Step 2
When the value of m or p for occurrence of the peak changes by more than a fraction of the 153 Hz. In this case, Step 2
between blocks, this computation must still use both results could process the r2 sequences exactly as prescribed in (26),
for this last determined value of m , p ; our assumption that m since the varying DFO tone will be passed by the selected filter

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STEIN: ALGORITHMS FOR AMBIGUITY FUNCTION PROCESSING 591

with essentially nodistortion.Theaccelerationtermsneed width signal, even with input SNR’s of - 10 dB, 5 ms integra-
only be introduced in the final narrow-band filter calculation tion intervals shouldprovideadequateprocessed SNR, al-
representedby (28). Thiscalculationwouldnowbe repre- though not narrowing the lobe in the f-direction as finely as
sented by a form suchas one would wantfor fine mode operation.
The range of DTO and DFO parameters to be searched can
RQ+Q-1
usuallybeboundedfrom prior geometricconsiderations.In
&(f) = 2 r3(q) exp ( - j 2 w T 3 exp I - j d 0 3 ~ 1 . our wide bandwidth example, we took the DFO to be reason-
q=RQ
ablybounded to +1 kHz.Thebandwidthcorresponding to
(3 1) 5 ms integration is 200 Hz, so that in this case, up to ten
Because of the low processing burden, one mightcalculate for Doppler cells would have to be searched for every time lag.
The shorter the coherent integration time, the wider the Dop-
a number of different accelerationvalues for each “delay.”
As represented here, thereis no significant processing burden pler bandwidth, and the fewer the number cells of that have to
increase at Step 2, and Step 3 calculations are so negligible a be searched. This makes attractive the use of shorter integra-
burden that even a large factor increase is ignorable. However, tion intervals in the coarse mode, with noncoherent summing
to allow for extreme values of acceleration, one may need t o to build up effective SNR, as discussed in Section IV-C.
consider adding them in at Step 2. This would increase the We will actually outline a two-step acquisition procedure for
processing burden at that point to allow interpolating in fre- parameter acquisition. The first step uses an FFT convolver to
quency to follow a more continuous value than the discrete achieve DTO measurement with only coarse measurement of
values in (28), in a manner analogous to the suggested treat- the differential Doppler shift. The second Step uses FFT spec-
ment of thevarying DTO. Note that the multiple-step approach tral analysis of the mixing product at the determined time de-
to ambiguity calculation allows one to consider processes such lay to provide precise measurementof the differential fre-
as acceleration filtering without facing an exorbitant increase quency (essentially identical to the Step 2fine mode process).
in system processing burden, because of the great downsam- The first step requires integration time long enough to pro-
pling after the first step. vide an adequate processed SNR to assure reliable detection of
When acceleration fdters are used, the phase change between the lobe, yet sufficiently short to be convenient from a pro-
successive ambiguity function calculations represents the accu- cessing viewpoint, and to require a small number of Doppler
mulated total phase differential over the integrationtimeT cells to be searched. In the convolver (to avoid circular convo-
between theactualphaseofthe mixing producttonepro- lution effects), the FFT’s will use 50 percent overlap with one
duced by the Step 1 operations and that to which the fiter is of the inputs zero-packed over 50 percent of the interval. For
matched. It is specifically the phase differential accumulated our example with 1.25 MHz sampling rate, a 2048-point FFT
at the average frequency differential betweenthe filter and would correspond to using a datalength of 819.2y s for convo-
lution. With this value, the frequency-direction width of an
the mixing product. One would probably use this value to up-
date the frequency estimate, and use only a fraction of it also ambiguity lobe will be 1220 Hz (+610 Hz). If the initial dif-
to correct the estimated acceleration. A suddenacceleration ferential Doppler uncertainty is larger than this value, the am-
change (a step function) would be followed by a tracking loop biguity will have to be calculated for several different values of
output only as some smoothedlagging response to a step. frequency, spaced, say, by multiples of 610 Hz (to be consis-
As a summary on this aspect of the measurement problem, tent with the spacing of the FFT lines). Moreover, the differ-
weare commenting on processing techniques that have not ential time delay will be searched at all multiples of the equiva-
been adequately explored experimentally to the best of our lent complex sampling rate, in blocks of 819.2 ys. Again, if
knowledge. However, they appear to be on as firm a ground as the initial differential delayuncertainty islarger than this
most of the rest of the processingwehave been discussing, value, many such blocks will have to be searched.
where(unpublished)laboratoryexperimental results closely The specific calculations willbe based on use of the now
followed predictionsfor inputSNR’s as low as -20 dB. familiar ambiguity formula that we write in the sampled-data
form, with itsFFT convolution equivalent:
D. Coarse Mode N N
R-+--1
The coarse or acquisition mode is needed to provide initial 2 2 A
estimation of parameters with sufficient accuracy to enter the s , ( n
A)Rs (^q, N
.(n
++mq; N
v )+=m )
fine or tracking mode, orto reinitiate the tracking mode when- RN
n=-
2
ever tracking is lost for any reason. In either case, it is not
generally a continuous operation. Hence, although coarseesti-
mation or acquisition must be limited to a reasonable process-
ing burden, it is defined so as to have little input on total pro-
N=l
cessing system design.
The need is to search all possible positions in the ambiguity
= 2
S,(k + v;R)S:(k;R + q )
k=O
plane, with sufficient processed SNR to assure reliable detec-
tion (with low false alarm rate) of the correlation lobe. For
example, it was indicated in Section I11 that for 1 MHz band-

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598
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ACOUSTICS, SPEECH, AND SIGNAL PROCESSING,
VOL. ASSP-29, NO. 3, JUNE
1981

The notation S l ( k ; R), S,(k; R ) refers to the Rth block of E. Narrow Bandwidth Example
FFT's, one of whichconsists of N points (selected with 50 per- To show another example of this kind of processing, with
cent overlap), while theother consists of N/2 points (aug- some different properties, we turn now to the narrow-band ex-
mented by N / 2 zeros). AR refers to the ambiguity surface cal- ample suggested earlier, and add a different class of accuracy
culation which combines the Rth block taken on s1 with the requirements. The parameters are
(R t q)th block of s2 when the delay being tested is in some
range other than (0, 819.2) ,us; the delay at which A R is being signal bandwidth = 25 kHz
calculated is ?- = (4N + m ) T, where T, is the sampling interval sampling rate (complex) = 50 kHz (T, = 20 ys)
for the complex envelope representation of the data. The fre- accuracy requirements:
quency at which A R is being calculated is f = v/2T = 610v Hz DTO: 40 ns
since T = 819.2 ys. The basic computation will utilize the DFO: 0.001 Hz
RHS of (32), with 4 and v considered fixed (i.e., a separate set maximum DFO uncertainty: +lo0 Hz
of computations for each q and v). An FFT performed on the integration time: 10 s.
cross-spectral product will give AR for all values of m (from 0 The number of samples in an integrationinterval is N = 5 (10)'.
to N/2), for that given q and v. Finally, the values of AR will A major difference between this example and the previous
be calculated for the same set of parameters over a number wide-band case is the large discrepancy between the sampling
of blocks of the order of 256 (to be compatible with the fre- interval (20 (us) and the precision (<40 ns) needed to be com-
quency search, as describedbelow)andthemagnitudes (or mensurate with the accuracy goal. Since in the fine mode (or
squared magnitudes) are averaged. The averaged values will be in any calculation with the sampled data), the timelags will be
compared toa presetthreshold,based on noise and signal 20 p s apart, a very fine interpolation will be necessary, locat-
level estimates, to determinewhetherany significant ambi- ing the correlation lobe peak to 1/500 of the interval width.
guity lobes can be seen. The search would start with the most Similarly, if 0.1 Hz is the basic frequency resolution afforded
likely values of q and v, and proceed with other values until by 10 s integration, the 0.001 Hz DFOrequirement implies
such a lobe is found with some confidence or until all regions 1/100 splitting. Inboth cases, these are quiteconsistent
of interest have been searched. with the high SNR built upby the processing;even for y = - 10
For each lobe found, there is now an accurate estimate of dB, = 158.Theinterpolationof valuesover acut along
time delay for entering the fine mode. To obtain a suitable es- the ?--direction of an ambiguity function is basically that im-
timate of DFO, one can form the mixing product at that time plied forthereconstructionof ananalogwaveform bythe
lag, andsubject it to an FFT with about 5 Hz resolution. sampling theorem. In an unpublished study, it was found that
However, the intermediate data already included fdtering the roughly 11-15 sample values are needed with a raised-cosine
mixing product at that time delay and at the value of v found filter interpolator to assure a 1/1000 interpolation with negli-
mostappropriate,with filter output representedbythe se- gible added error. This impliesfine mode calculations at prob-
quence of complex values of AR for that v and delay. There- ably 10 values of time lag for ll500 interpolation. A similar
fore, simply, that sequence canbe subjected to a final 256- statement applies for interpolation in the frequency direction.
point FFT to obtain the final desiredfrequency resolution, The interpolation situation is pictured in Fig. 3 , showing sev-
about 5 Hz, by determining the largest FFT value. eral samples and the reconstructed analog correlation function
We must recognize that just as in the fine mode, the differen- that they represent. It is, of course, only necessary to interpo-
tial Doppler shift may change over time intervals of the order late those values needed for testing to locate the peak. One
of 100 ms, and so may the differential delay. For purposes of simple algorithm is as follows. Select the three largest values
acquisition, webelieve it is satisfactory to assume that such (Rk, R k + l , R k + 2 in Fig. 3). The symmetry of the function
changes are linear, and that the centroid interpretation men- guarantees that the middle one is on one side of the peak, and
tioned earlier in Section I11 is sufficient for these purposes. To the other two on the other side. It can be shown [ 3 ] that the
validate the initial coarseestimate,itwould be desirable to peak can be accurately located at the value of T that is halfway
carry out fine mode calculations on the same set of input data, between R k and the point at the same level on the other side
at the acquired parameters. This can obviously be done in a of the peak, as indicated by the dashed line in Fig. 3 . Thus, it
multiple pass procedure, or byuse of sizable buffer storage. is only necessary to interpolate efficiently to find where that
The major processing burden for the coarse mode is obvi- otherpoint occurs. Knowing that it lies betweenthe other
ously in the first step, since the second step involves only one two values, it suffices to interpolate the value at the middle of
256-point FFT. The first step involves FFT's on the individual that sample interval (T,/2 from each sample), test whether the
signals, a spectral product for each block, and another FFT on interpolated value lies above or below the desired value, and
the product. The assumption is that the convolutions will not accordingly define a new T,/4 domain of uncertainty; then in-
have to be carried out in real time, unless the search range is terpolate another value at the midpoint of that interval; etc.
minimal, and that either a multiple pass on the input data is In nine steps of interpolation calculation, this locates the de-
available if overall operation is to be near real time (i.e., the siredvalue to ?T,/2". The interpolation calculations them-
coarse mode burden being negligible relative to a succession of selves are linear sums over the uniformly spaced sample values.
many fine mode calculations), or that parameter changes are To process ten time lag values in fine mode, with input data
slow enough to allow agap in the input datahandled. at 50 kHz, requires a 500 kHz rate of complex multiplies and

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STEIN: ALGORITHMS
FUNCTION
FOR AMBIGUITY PROCESSING 599

step 3
Fine Delay 6
Doppler Estimate

Fig. 4. Processing steps for narrow-band case.

lk-ZjT, (k-ljT, k T, (k*IjT, lk+ZlT, , (k*31Ts

Fig. 3. Interpolation of a sampledambiguitycut. modeprocess,termedcoarseand fine mode.Thecoarsemode

is used to greatly reduce the domain of uncertainty of time
delayandfrequencyoffset,followingwhich the fine mode
complex adds to form the mixing products and initial sums.
calculations are performed.The fine modeusesamixing
With the maximum DFO uncertainty at +lo0 H z , the Step 1
product/filter interpretation to greatly reduce the processing
I&D intervals could be taken over blocks of 256 samples (5.12
ms), corresponding to -3 dB bandwidths of 195 Hz, and an burden.
output sampling rate of 195 Hz for each of the ten time lags. Two illustrative examples were cited,onefor wide band-
The Step 2 processing could proceed directly to multiple fil- width, one for narrow bandwidth, whose different characteris-
ters of 0.1 Hz bandwidth and resolution, or could use a band- tics (including different accuracy statements) leadto variations
pass fiiter with bandwidth in the range 1-3 Hi (fraction of a in details of the processing approach. In both cases, it was
second integration), with 0.1 Hz filtering (possibly by FFT) shown that the processing loads are consistent with real time
only in Step 3. Clearly, almost the entire significant process- implementation in existing high-speed peripheralsorstand-
along systems. More recondite applications, such as requiring
ing burden here is in Step 1, and is well within the range of
significantly greater accuracy in the widebandwidth case,
available high-speed peripherals.
would probably result in slower than but “near” real time per-
To enter the fine mode, the coarse mode here wouldseek to
formance as a result of implementation cost considerations.
isolate the DTO t o +lo ps byfindingthe discrete time lag
withthe largest ambiguity functiorf magnitude, since this is REFERENCES
adequate to define the set of time lags needed for fine mode
[ 11 C. H. Knapp and G. C. Carter, “The generalized correlation method
calculations. -Typically, + l o ps accuracy (as compared to the for estimation of time delay,” IEEE Trans. Acoust., Speech, Sig-
ultimate 40 ns accuracy) can be accomplished with integration nal Processing, vol. ASSP-24, pp. 320-327, Aug. 1976.
intervals of the order of 20-40 ms, governed more by the spu- [2] P. Swerling, “Radar measurement accuracy,” in Radar Handbook,
M. Skolnik, Ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1970, ch. 4.
rious lobe requirements than by the accuracy requirement, as [3] D. Goodingand R. Greenspan,SteinAssociates,Waltham, MA,
discussed earlier in Section 11. However, to estimate the DFO unpublished works.
to within about 1 Hz so as to enter fine mode will require long
integration times, of the order of 1 s. For this, one would in
effect use the fine mode type of processing in its first step,
operating on a mixing product formed at the determined time
lag, Thus, the first step would use a low-passI&D filter to re- SeymourStein (S’48-A’54-SM757-F’75) re-
duce the bandwidth consistent with the known limited DFO ceived the Ph.D. degree from HarvardUniver-
sity, Cambridge,MA, in 1955.
uncertainty range (+lo0 Hz). If this first step results in a com- He waswith Sylvania ElectronicSystems
plex sample rate of 195 Hz, as suggested earlier, a 256-point from 1953 to 1956, Hermes Electronics from
FFT (operating therefore on about 1.25 s of input data)would 1956 to 1959, and Sylvania again from 1959
to 1968, becoming Associate Director of itsAp-
provide the desired accuracy. plied Research Laboratory and then Directorof
Fig. 4 indicates diagrammatically the processing steps just a newly formed Communication Systems Lab-
outlined for the narrow-bandcase. oratory. In 1969, he founded Stein Associates
(which became a division of the Adams-Russell
VI. CONCLUSIONS Company in 1970) and headed it until early 1979. Since 1979, he has
been an independent consultant to government and industry, operating
An approach to processing to obtain joint estimates of delay as SCPE, Inc., Newton, MA. Throughout his career, he has specialized
and frequency offset (DTO/DFO) for continuous waveforms in communication and signal processing theory and applications. He is
coauthor of CommunicationSystemsandTechniques (New York:
has been outlined that is based on efficient computation of McGraw-Hill, 1966) and Modern Communication Principles (New York:
complex ambiguity functions. Generally, it comprises a two McGraw-Hill, 1967).

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