Frequency estimation by DFT interpolation

Abstract

This article comments on a frequency estimator which was proposed by [1] and shows empirically that it exhibits a much larger mean squared error than a well known frequency estimator by [2]. It is demonstrated that by using a heuristical adjustment [3] the performance can be greatly improved. Furthermore, references to two modern techniques are given, which both nearly attain the Cramér-Rao bound for this estimation problem. [1] U. Ligges. Transkription monophoner Gesangszeitreihen. PhD thesis, TU Dortmund, 2006. [2] B. G. Quinn. Estimating frequency by interpolation using Fourier coefficients. Signal Processing, IEEE Transactions on, 42(5):1264-1268, May 1994. [3] E. Jacobsen. Frequency estimation page. www.ericjacobsen.org/fe2/fe2.htm.