Efficient Frequency Estimation of Sinusoid Based on Autocorrelation and Discrete Time Fourier Transform

Frequency estimation of sinusoid is an important research topic in the field of statistical signal processing. Efficient frequency estimation is of great significance for applications with high real-time requirements. In this paper, two efficient frequency estimators of complex sinusoid by using autocorrelation and discrete time Fourier transform (DTFT) are presented in additive white noise background. Firstly, autocorrelation algorithm is adopted to obtain the coarse frequency estimate. Then, three DTFT samples with arbitrary intervals located near the coarse estimate are used to get the fine frequency estimate. In order to evaluate the calculation complexity and estimation accuracy, the proposed estimators are compared with the competing algorithms. The computational complexity of the presented estimators is much lower than that of the competitive estimators. Simulation results show that the mean square errors of the presented estimators are close to the Cramer–Rao lower bound when the signal-to-noise ratio varies in a large range.