Detection of a dispersed pulse signal

Abstract

A method for detecting a dispersed pulse in a received signal that has been dispersed by a dispersive medium includes obtaining an input array of cells, each indicating an intensity of a frequency component of the signal at a representative time. A fast dispersion measure transform (FDMT) is applied to concurrently sum the cells of the input array that lie along different dispersion curves, each curve defined by a known non-linear functional form and being uniquely characterized by a time coordinate and by a value of the dispersion measure. Application of FDMT includes initially generating a plurality of sub-arrays, each representing a frequency sub-band and iteratively combining pairs of adjacent sub-arrays in accordance with an addition rule until all of the initially generated plurality of sub-arrays are combined into an output array of the sums, in which a cell of the output array that is indicative of a transmitted pulse is identified.