Slowly-Varying Channels and Signal Detection

摘要

The beginnings of a theory are established concerning time-varying and random linear channels with the intent of characterizing classes of channels which can be determined exactly or approximately by measurement, showing how the measurements can be made, analyzing the errors, and applying the results to the theory of signal detection. The treatment has been limited here to channels which are slowly-varying or which vary slightly around a known trend. Relations between almost-timeinvariance of a channel and a certain kind of statistical stationarity are developed. The notion of a determinable channel is defined and developed and classes of examples are given; also the idea of a channel with known trend is made precise and related to determinability. A general example is given to show how the results on channel measurement apply to some of the statistical inference problems of detection theory. (Author)