SMS scnews item created by Uri Keich at Thu 17 May 2012 1320
Type: Seminar
Distribution: World
Expiry: 25 May 2012
Calendar1: 25 May 2012 1400-1500
CalLoc1: Carslaw 173
Auth: uri@purix (assumed)

# Statistics Seminar: Barry Quinn -- Estimating the period of a Point Process/ Estimating the parameters in an exponentially damped sinusoid

Barry Quinn Department of Statistics Macquarie University

Location: Carslaw 273

Time: 2pm Friday, May 25, 2012

Title: Estimating the period of a Point Process/ Estimating the parameters in an
exponentially damped sinusoid

Abstract: The motivation for the first problem is from passive radar.  Pulses are
received from a radar emitter and the times of arrival recorded.  However, some pulses
may not be recorded and some may be recorded more than once.  There is also additive
noise in the recorded times.  The model for the arrival times is a linear regression
with unknown but integer-valued independent variable.  The slope represents the period
of transmission, and is known to lie in an interval for which the upper limit is twice
the lower.  Two estimation methods are suggested, and their asymptotic properties
discussed.  The work has been conducted jointly with Vaughan Clarkson of the University
of Queensland, and Robby McKilliam of the University of South Australia.  I started
working on the second problem when my son James came home from his Sydney University
Physics practical with some data from a damped mass-spring system, for which he had to
estimate the period or frequency and the damping coefficient.  The first solution to the
problem was obtained by Prony (1795).  We have adapted a simple technique I developed
for frequency estimation, based on Fourier coefficients.  I shall discuss the asymptotic
theory and the simple ideas behind the development of the algorithm.


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