A METHOD OF COMPUTING THE INHERENT ACCURACY WITH WHICH A TIME DELAY CAN BE ESTIMATED

Abstract

Results in the theory of statistical estimation, concerning the greatest lower bound for the variance of unbiased estimators, provide an approach to the problem of calculating the limits of accuracy with which a time delay between transmission and reception of a waveform can be estimated. First, a summary is given of the requisite results from estimation theory. Certain functions, necessary for the application of these results to the case of time delay estimation, are evaluated, assuming the received waveform to be observed against a background of additive Gaussian white noise. A brief discussion is given of points wherein this method may offer advantages over (a) Woodward's approach to the same problem, and (b) an approach based on the inequality of Cramer-Rao. An explicit asymptotic expression is calculated for the minimum error variance of unbiased estimates of time delay, for the case where the a- priori range of possible time delays is large.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Sep 27, 1957
Accession Number
AD0606542

Entities

People

  • P. Swerling

Organizations

  • RAND Corporation

Tags

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Accuracy
  • Additives (Chemicals)
  • Data Science
  • Errors
  • Estimators
  • Inequalities
  • Information Science
  • Mathematics
  • Noise
  • Statistical Algorithms
  • Statistical Analysis
  • Statistical Estimation
  • Waveforms
  • White Noise

Fields of Study

  • Engineering

Readers

  • Computer Networking
  • Statistical inference.
  • Theoretical Analysis.