Constraints and invariance in target detection

Nicolls, Frederick

Constraints and invariance in target detection

Doctoral Thesis

2000

Publisher

University of Cape Town

Department

Department of Electrical Engineering

Faculty

Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment

Abstract

The concept of invariance in hypothesis testing is discussed for purposes of target detection. Invariant tests are proposed and analysed in two contexts. The first involves the use of cyclic permutation invariance as a solution to detecting targets with unknown location in noise. An invariance condition is used to eliminate the target location parameter, and a uniformly most powerful test developed for the reduced data. The test is compared with conventional solutions, and shown to be more powerfu. The difference however is slight, justifying the simpler formulations. This conclusion continues to hold even when additional unknown noise parameters are introduced.