A phase-coherence detector/Estimator

A phase-coherence estimator formed via overlapped Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) processing and smoothing is presented. It is more efficiently implemented than the more usual magnitude squared coherence (MSC), requiring half the memory. In applications where the phase is the dominant component of the coherence, it provides a reliable estimate of the coherence. An expression for the false alarm probability is obtained and used in thresholding. The probability density function of the estimator is obtained for the narrowband steady state signal plus white Gaussian noise scenario, and is used in predicting the detection performance.