Electromagnetic matched-field processing: basic concepts and tropospheric simulations

Waveguide array processing methods have incorporated the physics of wave propagation as an integral part of the processing. Matched-field processing (MFP) refers to signal and array processing techniques in which, rather than a planewave arrival model, complex-valued (amplitude and phase) field predictions for propagating signals are used. Matched-field processing has been successfully applied in ocean acoustics. The extension of MFP to the electromagnetic domain, i.e., electromagnetic (EM) MFP (EM-MFP) is described. Simulations of EM-MFP in the tropospheric setting suggest that under suitable conditions, EM-MFP methods can enable EM sources to be both detected/localized and used as sources of opportunity for estimating the environmental parameters that determine EM propagation in the VHF to EHF bands.