On nonparametric signal detectors

This paper is a survey and summary of some of the simpler one-input and two-input detection schemes. Particular emphasis is placed on those systems where less than a complete statistical description of the input is required. Such nonparametric detectors offer the advantages of ease of instrumentation and insensitivity to changes in the input statistics while yielding a fixed maximum false alarm rate. For both the one-input and two-input cases, the paper begins with a review of well-known parametric detectors, proceeds in the direction of increasing departure from the parametric noise model, and introduces corresponding nonparametric techniques.