Analysis of I/O efficient order-statistic-based noise power estimators

Order-statistic-based noise power estimators for constant false alarm rate (CFAR) detection are considered in terms of required estimator accuracy and estimator dynamic range. By limiting the dynamic range of the value to be estimated, the performance of an order statistic estimator can be achieved by simple threshold-and-count techniques requiring only a single pass of the data. Noise power estimation in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) microwave observing project sky survey is considered as an example CFAR application. By using several parallel threshold-and-count estimation devices, the dynamic range can be expanded to meet SETI system requirements, with minimal hardware complexity. A second order-statistic-based estimator with wider dynamic range, but greater complexity is also examined