Score functions for locally subptimum and locally suboptimum rank detection in alpha-stable interference

Approximations to the locally optimum and locally optimum rank score functions for the detection of a known signal in additive symmetric /spl alpha/ stable interference have been shown to introduce only slight performance loss. Here, the location of the apices of the nonlinearities is shown to follow an approximate linear relationship with the characteristic exponent, /spl alpha/, of the interference. The distribution of the corresponding test statistics is also found to be approximately Gaussian. These findings make implementation of the detectors more feasible and remove some expensive computational burden.