Data Quantization for Narrowband Signal Detection

In automatic radar detection, digital integration of the envelope detector outputs is often used as a good approximation to the optimum. This requires quantizing the envelope detector outputs. In this paper, quantizer structures for narrowband signal detection are considered. Quantizer characteristics are derived to optimize performance as measured by the detector efficacy?an asymptotic performance measure. Asymptotic and finite sample performance results are presented. The results obtained are not limited in their application to Gaussian noise only, although this important case is given specific consideration.