Analysis of a two-pass modified Hough transform technique for the detection of wake-like signals

A procedure is developed using the modified Hough transform (MHT) for the detection of signals of low signal-to-noise ratio. The signal can be considered as being composed of a sum of narrow lines. The expected number of signal and false lines to be found in an image can be determined as a function of the false alarm probability pre decision. The MHT performance is compared to that of the matched filter. The method is applied to noisy images containing a wakelike signal. The MHT is able to detect the signal pattern at signal-to-noise ratios for which the signal is just visible on a good image display system. A two-pass system, using prior knowledge about the signal, gives improved detection performance.<>