ESPRITWED-UG and AV-ESPRITWED: Two new linear subspace algorithms for time delay estimation

Two improvements of the “linear ESPRIT” algorithm in [1] are proposed and applied to the time delay estimation (TDE) from radar data within the microwave range. At first, “linear ESPRIT” is adapted to the TDE. Then, two new linear subspace algorithms, namely ESPRITWED-UG (ESPRIT Without EigenDecomposition) and AV-ESPRITWED (AVerage ESPRIT Without EigenDecomposition) are proposed. Contrary to [1], both algorithms take the whole bandwidth into account. Computer tests enable to assess the performances of the algorithms on the measurements of the layer thickness of civil engineering materials from GPR data. The new methods show improved noise robustness and smaller standard deviation in comparison with linear ESPRIT [1] and SWEDE [2].