Detecting NQR signals severely polluted by interference

- The proposed method effectively cancels complicated interference which can be strong, nonstationary, and have frequencies close to that of signal of interest.
- The proposed method facilitates a valid detection of the NQR signal severely polluted by interference.
- The proposed method performs better than general frequency selective methods of interference cancellation.

Nuclear Quadrupole Resonance (NQR) signal detection can be severely obstructed by interference in real life settings, especially when the interference is strong, nonstationary, and its frequencies are close to that of the NQR signal. A novel algorithm is proposed to effectively remove (or reduce) interference components in the data and facilitate a valid detection of the NQR signal. The proposed method exhibits better performance compared to the previously proposed ETAML and FETAML algorithms, when applied to both simulated and measured data. Importantly, the present algorithm directly operates on the original primary data, without requiring any secondary data (NQR signal-free data) for acquiring prior knowledge of the interference.