An iterative approach to the parametric estimation of chirp signals

This paper considers the problem of estimating the parameters of a chirp signal from a finite number of noisy discrete time observations. A new iterative method is proposed that proceeds in two steps where the first step consists of estimating iteratively the second order phase coefficient using a properly chosen lagged sequence. The resulting sequence is shown to be time series harmonic, the harmonic frequency being a linear function of the chirp parameters. The iterative procedure is repeated until significantly accurate results are obtained. The second step consists of estimating (iteratively or not) the first order phase coefficient using a properly chosen quadratic transform of the chirp signal. The efficacy of the method is demonstrated by some numerical simulations.