The Performance Characteristics of Two Extensions of the Sign Detector

Two related techniques have been proposed in the past for improving the performance of the sign detector through higherorder data quantization. The fixed-threshold -interval detector and the generalized sign detector using a conditional test are both nonparametric detectors which are fairly simple to implement. In this paper we compare the asymptotic and finite-sample, finite-signal performance characteristics of these two detectors, and point out their relative advantages and disadvantages.