A CFAR-Enhanced Spectral Whitening Method for Acoustic Sensing via UAVs

Abstract

The following paper addresses the issue of performing CFAR detection on signals with colored noise distributions, such as that found when performing acoustic sensing via UAVs. With respect to the outlined considerations, a CFAR-enhanced spectral whitening method is proposed to maintain detector functionality without inhibiting detection sensitivity. The performance of the method is also demonstrated using acoustic data taken from experiments involving a fixed-wing UAV. From the results obtained, it is evident the approach performs significantly better than standard techniques such as inverse spectral whitening, which tend to attenuate acquired target source components.

Keywords

• spectral whitening
• constant false alarm rate (CFAR)
• acoustic sensing