Frequency estimation, phase unwrapping and the nearest lattice point problem

In this paper, we examine the relationship between frequency estimation and phase unwrapping and a problem in algorithmic number theory known as the nearest lattice point problem. After briefly reviewing the theory of these three topics, we introduce an interpretation of the maximum likelihood frequency estimation problem as a nearest lattice point problem. We develop an algorithm based on this approach and present numerical results to compare its performance with other estimation techniques. We find that the algorithm has good powers of estimation