12

On Albersheim's Detection Equation

11
Albersheim's detection formula is extremely accurate over the
10
usual range of parameters. It is much more convenient to use than
9 lengthy computer programs, and it provides direct insight into
tradeoffs in design. Quantitative information on the accuracy
;, 8
p =
1% bounds of Albersheim's formula is given here. Other contributions
- - -p =
x
0
. . . . . . .p = 207 made by Albersheim are discussed and some biographical
0
- - - p =
50% information is provided.
z
PO 6

CZ
35
z
2
0 gram which does other things. Because of its utility,, the
.2 .4 .6
RATIO OF SPECTRAL COMPONENTS
Fig. 3. Variance reduction for different spectral ccharacteristics.
IV. CONCLUSIONS
From the curves in Fig. 3 it can be seen that for
power spectral amplitude ratios a21a, greater than 0.5,
there is a negligible increase in the variance reduction ra-
tio u 2/CrS 2 Stated another way this means that if the
spectrum is flat to within 3 dB across the band, then the
clutter variance should be essentially the same as for a
flat spectrum. For power spectral amplitude ratios less
than 0.2 (spectrum has more than a 7 dB variation across
the band), the increase in the variance reduction ratio can
be significant.
It can also be seen from the curves of Fig. 3 that for
a sharply peaked spectrum, or a spectrum which has one
or two very large, discrete frequency components, the in-
crease in the variance reduction ratio can be dramatic.
This is evidenced by the curves for p = 0.1 and 0.01 at
low values of a2/al. The spectrum in these cases essen-
tially approaches a narrowband spectrum.
REFERENCES
[1] Davenport and Root. (1958)
Random Signals and Noise.
New York: McGraw-Hill, 1958.
1. INTRODUCTION
Walter Albersheim [1] derived a simple formula for
signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) in decibels which is required
to achieve a given level of performance for envelope de-
tection of a nonfluctuating (sinusoidal) signal in narrow-
band noise. Despite its simplicity, this empirical equation
is remarkably accurate. The equation replaces the use of
many graphs and is particularly convenient when the de-
tection calculation must be embedded in a computer pro-
.8 1.0 writers believe that it deserves wider exposure than that
(aI/a2) given by [1], which many engineers will not have seen.
11. EQUATION
The equation we discuss here is
1/ 4.54 \
S/N = -5 log 0 M + t6.2 +
VM* + 44
o.54zJ
'log Io(A + 0.12 AB + l. 7B) (dB)() (I)
where
A = In (0.62/Pf)
B = In [Pd(l -Pd)] = In Pd -ln (1 - Pd)
and where M is the number of independent samples, Pd is
the detection probability, and Pf is the false alarm proba-
bility.
The derivation is given in [1].
III. COMPARISON WITH ROBERTSON'S RESULTS
In comparison with Robertson's [2, 3] results, which
have long been the accepted standard, this equation is
DUANE E. BOWYER within 0.2 dB over a very wide range of parameters and
Tactical Systems Inc. even closer over the most common range of interest.
P.O. Box 771 Some examples are given in Table I. It can be seen that
Shalimar, FL 32579 the accuracy is within 0.2 dB over most of the range. A
wider range of examples is plotted in Fig. 1. The solid
circles represent Pf = 10-4 and the open circles repre-
sent Pf = 10-8.
Manuscript received June 11, 1982; revised December 11, 1982.
0018-9251/83/0700-0643 $00.75 © 1983 IEEE

CORRESPONDENCE 643
IV. OTHER APPLICATIONS TABLE I
Comparison of Albersheim Approximation with Robertson Data
If S/N in [1] is replaced by E/No (received signal en-
ergy/noise power density), the equation can be more Pf M Pd
SNR (dB)

widely applied. For example, it applies to nonfluctuating Alb. Rob. Diff.

coded signals processed by a matched filter or correlator, .2 6.91 7.40 -.49
envelope detector, and integrator. .3 8.05 8.22 -.17
As Robertson [2] and others have remarked, the enve- I
.5 9.40 9.40 0
lope detector results can be used with small error (always .8 10.97 11.00 -.03
.9 11.67 11.75 -.08
less than 0.2 dB) for square law detectors as well. Using .95 12.24 12.32 -.08
[1] would make the total error slightly larger, but making
small adjustments to the equation would make a better fit .2 2.77 3.00 -.23
to square law detector performance. Square law detector .3 3.73 3.70 .03
4 .5 4.85 4.75 .10
curves are widely available, beginning with the pioneer- .8 6.17 6.18 -.01
ing work of Marcum [41 and extending to Robertson [3] .9 6.76 6.85 -.09
and Meyer and Mayer [5]. .95 7.23 7.35 -.12
10 -4
.2 0.86 1.10 -.24
.3 1.74 1.75 -.01
8 .5 2.79 2.71 .08
.8 4.01 4.05 -.04
.9 4.56 4.67 -.11
.95 5.00 5.14 -.14
.2 -0.95 -0.68 -.27
.3 -0.12 -0.07 -.05
16 .5 0.87 0.82 .05
a'
.8 2.02 2.08 -.06
.9 2.54 2.64 -.10
.95 2.95 3.09 -.14
.2 10.99 11.20 -.21
.3 11.65 11.73 -.08
1 .5 12.52 12.52 0
.8 13.65 13.70 -.05
.9 14.19 14.23 -.04
.95 14.64 14.65 -.01
.2 6.18 6.20 -.02
.3 6.74 6.70 .04
4 .5 7.47 7.42 .05
.8 8.41 8.48 -.07
dB
.9 8.87 8.98 .11
o pf = 10-8 .95 9.24 9.37 .13
10-8
.2 4.03 4.02 .01
.3 4.54 4.48 .06
8 .5 5.22 5.16 .06
Fig. 1. Further examples of the comparison of the Albersheim approx- .8 6.10 6.15 -.05
imation and the Robertson data. .9 6.52 6.62 -.10
.95 6.87 7.00 -.13
.2 2.03 2.03 0
V. CONTRIBUTIONS OF DR. WALTER .3 2.52 2.45 .07
ALBERSHEIM 16 .5 3.16 3.10 .06
.8 3.99 4.00 -.01
Walter Albersheim derived his equation at the age of .9 4.39 4.46 -.07
84 and it was published a few months after he died. He .95
I.
4.72
I_______
4.80
I
-.08
was born in Cologne, Germany, on April 22, 1897 and
emigrated to the United States in 1924, the year in which
he received his doctoral degree from the Aachen Institute than 60 U.S. patents in mechanical, acoustical, optical,
of Technology. During the greater part of his professional radio, and radar devices and systems and where he wrote
life, from 1929 to 1959, he worked for the Bell Tele- many papers published in technical journals.
phone System where he invented about 50 of his more After retiring from Bell Telephone Laboratories in
1959, he became Vice President and Chief Development
0018-9251/83/0700-0644 $00.75 (C 1983 IEEE Engineer of Spencer Kennedy Laboratories in Boston,
644 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON AEROSPACE AND ELECTRONIC SYSTEMS VOL. AES-19 NO. 4 JULY 1983
Consultant to Riverside Research Institute of Columbia
University, to Mitre Corporation, and to Sanders Associ-
ates, Inc. He provided useful and often innovative engi-
neering insights and designs at Sanders Associates, Inc.
until a few days before he died. Many young engineers
benefited from his friendly interest in their professional
growth.
Biased by our more limited ranges of professional ac-
tivity, and hence omitting his important mechanical,
acoustical, electrooptical, and optical contributions, we
provide an annotated list of certain papers and patents of
Dr. Walter Albersheim. With the exception of the well-
known chirp radar paper, these were chosen as further
examples of very useful contributions which should be
more widely known.
(1) Kritisches uber das Problem des Ziehens und
seine Literature Archiv fur Elektrotechnik, 14, 1 (1924),
23-41. This paper provides an analysis of coupled reso-
nant circuits which can contain nonlinear amplifiers.
(2) In his review paper on the application of the Dop-
pler principle to radio navigation [6], Ernst Kramar refers
to U.S. patent 1 995 285 dated January 25, 1929, by
Walter Albersheim and Harvey Konheim. Kramer states,
"The measurement of speed, to my knowledge, was
mentioned for the first time in a 1929 patent of Alber-
sheim and Konheim" [6, p. 258].
(3) Mathematical relations between grain, background
noise and characteristic curve of sound-film emulsions.
Journal of the Society of Motion Picture Engineers (Oct.
1937), 417-445. Quantum statistical calculations are used
to characterize the large-scale phenomena of film noise,
contrast, speed, and development characteristics.
(4) Propagation of TEO, waves in curved waveguides.
Bell System Technical Journal, 28 (Jan. 1949), 1-32.
Analysis and physical interpretation of mode coupling
which occurs at waveguide bends are presented. This pa-
per is closely related to Dr. Albersheim's patents
2 649 578, Wave Guide Elbow, and 2 779 006, Spurious
Mode Suppressing Wave Guides.
(5) Measuring techniques for broad-band, long-dis-
tance radio relay systems. Proceedings of the IRE, 40
(May 1952), 548-551. This paper contains a clear de-
scription of basic principles and methods for measurement
of important attributes of transmission systems. Working
with L.E. Hunt, Walter Albersheim invented a method
for measurement of one-way delay distortion as a func-
tion of frequency. Only the output of the transmission
medium is needed for this ingenious method. It is also
described in an article by Albersheim in the Bell Labora-
tories Record of July 1953, and it was used in develop-
ment of the TD-2 radio relay system. A related, novel
phase-measuring method is described in Albersheim's
U.S. Patent 2 756 390. He made important contributions
to the system design of TD-2 as well. One such contribu-
tion, a method for obtaining link reliability by automati-
cally and rapidly switching a spare transmission channel
into service, is described in his patent number 2 686 256
CORRESPONDENCE
of August 10, 1954, entitled "signal transmission sys-
tem. "
(6) The theory and design of chirp radars. Bell Sys-
tem Technical Journal, 39 (July 1960), 745-808, written
with J.R. Klauder, A.C. Price, and S. Darlington. (Wal-
ter Albersheim collaborated with A.F. Dietrich and O.F.
Delange in 1951 on early Bell Laboratories experimental
realizations of chirp radar, and he discovered the applica-
bility of dispersive delay lines to compressive and
matched-filter receivers. This work was taken up again
many years later in collaboration with C.E. Stromswold,
J.T. Apostolos, and R.P. Boland at Sanders Associates,
Inc. Some results of that collaboration are contained in
Walter Albersheim's last patent, 4 305 159, Compressive
Receiver, December 8, 1981.
Walter Albersheim's consistently first-rate technical
contributions over a 60 year career as an electrical engi-
neer are indeed impressive. Even more impressive to
those of us who had the good fortune to know him is our
memory of a great human being-altruistic, good hu-
mored, even a little mischievous sometimes-but always
helpful in solving both technical and human problems.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors gratefully acknowledge the help of Al-
berta Albersheim and the helpful comments made by
D.K. Barton, J.P. Costas, and F. Shapiro.
DONALD W. TUFTS
Department of Electrical Engineering
Kelly Hall
University of Rhode Island
Kingston, RI 02881
ALFRED J. CANN
Sanders Associates, Inc.
Daniel Webster Highway, South
Nashua, NH 03061
[1] Albersheim, W.J. 91981)
A closed-formn approximation to Robertson's detection char-
acteristics.
Proceedings of the IEEE (Letters), 69 (July 1981), 839.
[21 Robertson, G.H. (1967)
Operating characteristics for a linear detector of CW signals
in narrow-band noise.
Bell System Technical Journal (April 1967), 755-774.
[3] Robertson, G.H. (1977)
Normal Error Model Analysis Charts.
Summit, N .J.: G.H. Robertson, 1977.
[4] Marcum, J.I. (1947)
Statistical theory of target detection by pulsed radar.
Rand Research Memo, RM-754, Dec. 1, 1947; reprinted in
IRE Transactions on Information Theory, IT-6 (April 1960);
ASTIA document AD101287.
[5] Meyer, D.P., and Mayer, H.A. (1973)
Radar Target Detection.
New York: Academic Press, 1973.
0018-9251/83/0700-0645 $00.75 © 1983 IEEE
645
[61 Kramar, E. (1972)
A historical survey of the application of the Doppler princi- C _(tN+ 1-i)
V i J
ple for radio navigation.
IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems, and where k is the index at N + l-2i = 0 on 1 and p is
AES-8 (May 1972), 258-263.
the probability of a hit or a single look. Notice that coef-
ficients C, may be found by making a Bishop's move up-
ward through Pascal's triangle. Table 1I lists the Cj for
N = 2 to 12 and gives the value of p for Pd to be 0.95.
Simplifying the Calculation of 2 or 3 Consecutive TABLE II
Successes Out of N Tries Coefficients C, for 2 Consecutive Successes Out of N Tries

N Cj Value of p for Pd = 095

2 1 2 0.974679
The included tables may be used to calculate 2 or 3 consecutive 3 1, 3, 1 0.952178
successes out of N tries avoiding the counting of the mutually exclu- 4 1, 4, 3 0.864650
sive successful events. 5 1, 5, 6, 1 0.812871
6 1, 6, 10, 4 0.755121
7 1, 7, 15, 10, 1 0.710270
8 1, 8,21, 20, 5 0.670160
Often to increase the cumulative probability of detec- 9 1, 9, 28, 35, 15, 1 0.635855
tion Pd by a radar some simple logic criterion is used, 10 1, 10, 36, 56, 35, 6 0.605714
such as there must be 2 hits out of 3 looks. How to cal- 11 1, 11, 45, 84, 70, 21, 1 0.579161
12 1, 12, 55, 120, 126, 56,7 0.555538
culate Pd for these simple cases can be found in any be-
ginning probability or statistics text book; for examples
see Freund (1] or Parzen [2]. If one chooses to use the Table III lists the coefficients Ci for 3 consecutive hits
slightly more complicated logic that there be 2 consecu- out of N looks. These values were found by counting the
tive hits out of 3 looks, then the counting of mutually ex- mutually exclusive events. Pd may again be found by us-
clusive events is customarily used. Table I lists all ing (1) but the Ci must be taken from Table III and k is
possible outcomes for three looks at a target with M one less than the given number of C,.
TABLE I TABLE III
All Possible Outcomes for 3 Looks at a Target Coefficients C, for 3 Consecutive Successes Out of N Tries
Column Number N Cj p forPd = 0.95
Outcomes 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
3 1, 3, 3 0.983048
M H M H M H M H 4 1, 4, 6, 2 0.974985
Outcomes M M H H M M H H 5 1, 5, 10, 7, 1 0.955506
M M M M H H H H 6 1, 6,15, 16, 6 0.902389
7 1, 7,21, 30, 19, 3 0.876475
8 1, 8,28, 50, 45, 16, 1 0.845852
meaning miss and H meaning hit. Each column is an 9 1, 9,36. 77, 90, 51, 10 0.815674
event and since no columns are duplicated they are mu- 10 1,10, 45, 112, 161, 126, 45, 4 0.790989
tually exclusive. Note that only in columns 3,6, and 7 are 11 1, 11, 55, 156, 166, 266, 141, 30, 1 0.767634
there 2 consecutive hits out of 3 looks. If p is the proba- 12 1, 12, 66, 210, 414, 504, 357, 126, 15 0.746331
bility of a hit on a single look, then the cumulative prob-
ability of detection Pd for this case may be found by The probability of a false alarm may be calculated in
summing the probability for the successful events, Pd= a similar manner.
2p2(l -p)+ p3.
While counting the mutually exclusive successful C. ALAN CUMMINGS
events for 2 consecutive hits out of N tries, the author Zeke Cummings
noticed a pattern in the results and developed a much 12303 North Shawdee Drive SE
easier method for finding Pd using Huntsville, AL 35803
k
Pd = 1 - E Cipi (
i=O
p)N-i (1)
REFERENCES
where I11 Freund, J.E. (1962)
Mathematical Statistics.
Manuscript received January 7, 1982; revised November 12, 1982. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1962.
[2] Parzen, E. (1960)
Modern Probabilitv Theory and Its Applications.
0018-9251/83/0700-0646 $00.75 © 1983 IEEE New York: Wiley, 1960.

646 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON AEROSPACE AND ELECTRONIC SYSTEMS VOL. AES-19 NO. 4 JULY 1983