GATED PEAK INTEGRATION VERSUS PEAK DETECTION IN WHITE-NOISE

The optimum gated integration windows for a variety of common peak shapes in stationary, white noise are derived by means of simple linear systems theory. Optimum windows are found to provide signal-to-noise ratios less than 10% lower than the matched filter results. The confusion between peak detection and narrow gate window integration is discussed, and it is demonstrated that both are inferior to optimum gated integration. It is also shown that the matched filter result is the appropriate benchmark against which proposed new detection techniques should be compared.