Instantaneous Frequency Estimation via Ridge Detection in Polynomial Time and Space

Application of ridge detection algorithms to various transforms and problems in time-frequency (TF) analysis has become increasingly widespread with notable application in the instantaneous frequency (IF) estimation. Metaheuristic techniques, such as simulated annealing algorithms, are commonly employed for ridge detection. In this letter, we demonstrate that ridge detection can be achieved using an instance of the Viterbi algorithm (VA). This implementation ensures a global optimum with polynomial time and space complexity. The proposed ridge detection IF estimator is compared to an alternative approach based on the VA.