The bootstrap applied to passive acoustic aircraft parameter estimation

This paper proposes and demonstrates a practical parameter estimation scheme for estimating the height, speed, range and acoustic frequency of an overflying aircraft. This scheme is based on the phase of the acoustic signal emitted by the aircraft as heard by a stationary observer. Bootstrap techniques are employed to determine confidence bounds for the aircraft parameters given only a single acoustic realisation. This estimation scheme, and the novel use of the bootstrap, are demonstrated by computer simulation and with aircraft acoustic data which was collected by the authors under accurately monitored experimental conditions