On the time-frequency detection of chirps

Abstract

The question of detecting a chirp in the time-frequency plane is addressed. Strategies based on line integration are discussed with respect to optimality and adequacy of a representation to a given chirp. Linear and power-law chirps are considered in some detail and a possible application of affine distributions to the detection of gravitational waves is proposed, together with an effective implementation by means of reassigned spectrograms. © 1999 Academic Press.