Parameter estimation of 2-D random amplitude polynomial-phase signals

Phase information has fundamental importance in many two-dimensional (2-D) signal processing problems. In this paper, we consider 2-D signals with random amplitude and a continuous deterministic phase. The signal is represented by a random amplitude polynomial phase model. A computationally efficient estimation algorithm for the signal parameters is presented. The algorithm is based on the properties of the mean phase differencing operator, which is introduced and analyzed. Assuming that the signal is observed in additive white Gaussian noise and that the amplitude field is Gaussian as well, we derive the Cramer-Rao lower bound (CRB) on the error variance in jointly estimating the model parameters. The performance of the algorithm in the presence of additive white Gaussian noise is illustrated by numerical examples and compared with the CRB.