Resolution of a 2/spl pi/ ambiguity problem in multiple frequency spectral estimation

An algorithm is proposed to resolve a fundamental 2/spl pi/ ambiguity problem occurring in multiple frequency spectral estimation. Given M frequencies f/sub m/, and I separate frequency estimators with unambiguous bandwidths F/sub i/, the ambiguity problem can be stated as solving for the fm, given the estimator outputs, /spl alphasub mi/, (1/spl les/m/spl les/M;1/spl les/i/spl les/I) where f/sub m/=/spl alphasub mi/+K/sub mi/F/sub i/ and K/sub mi/ is some integer. The proposed algorithm exhaustively resolves all possible /spl alphasub mi/ groupings into single frequency values using a noise insensitive technique that exchanges system bandwidth for noise protection. The correct multiple frequencies are then defined as the single frequencies that repeat a specified number of times. A complete analysis is included.<>