Editorial: Time frequency and array processing of non-stationary signals

Abstract

Conventional time-frequency analysis methods were extended to data arrays in many applications, and there is the potential for more synergistic development of new advanced tools by exploiting the joint properties of time-frequency methods and array signal processing methods. Conventional array signal processing assumes stationary signals and mainly employs the covariance matrix of the data array. This assumption is motivated by the crucial need in practice for estimating sample statistics by resorting to temporal averaging under the additional hypothesis of ergodic signals. When the frequency content of the measured signals is time varying (i.e., non-stationary signals), this class of approaches can still be applied. However, the achievable performances in this case are reduced with respect to those that would be achieved in a stationary environment. Instead of considering the nonstationarity as a shortcoming, time frequency array processing (TFAP) takes advantage of the nonstationarity by considering it as a source of information in the design of efficient algorithms in such nonstationary environments. Generally, this significantly improves performance. This improvement comes essentially from the fact that the effects of spreading the noise power while localizing the source energy in the time frequency domain increases the signal to noise ratio (SNR). Such approaches found applications in many important fields dealing with nonstationary signals and multi-sensor systems, such as biomedical, radar, seismic, telecommunications, and mechanical engineering.