Robust M-periodogram with dichotomous search

The problem of sinusoidal frequency estimation in heavy-tailed noise environment is addressed. A method based on the robust M-periodogram is proposed. Specifically, a suboptimal coarse frequency estimate provided by the robust M-periodogram is improved using the modified dichotomous search. Simulations that consider most common heavy-tailed noise models demonstrate that the proposed method outperforms several recently proposed methods. The method can be readily extended to deal with multiple sinusoids.

► We consider sinusoid frequency estimation in heavy-tailed noise environment. ► Robust M-periodogram outperforms the standard periodogram-based techniques. ► Coarse estimate (maximum bin position) is refined using the dichotomous search. ► Our method outperforms several recently proposed methods for the most common noises. ►The calculation complexity is of the same order as of the other techniques.