Detection of Gaussian signals in Poisson-modulated interference.

Passive broadband detection of target signals by an array of hydrophones in the presence of multiple discrete interferers is analyzed under Gaussian statistics and low signal-to-noise ratio conditions. A nonhomogeneous Poisson-modulated interference process is used to model the ensemble of possible arrival directions of the discrete interferers. Closed-form expressions are derived for the recognition differential of the passive-sonar equation in the presence of Poisson-modulated interference. The interference-compensated recognition differential differs from the classical recognition differential by an additive positive term that depend on the interference-to-noise ratio, the directionality of the Poisson-modulated interference, and the array beam pattern.

Maximum likelihood training of probabilistic neural networks.

A maximum likelihood method is presented for training probabilistic neural networks (PNN's) using a Gaussian kernel, or Parzen window. The proposed training algorithm enables general nonlinear discrimination and is a generalization of Fisher's method for linear discrimination. Important features of maximum likelihood training for PNN's are: 1) it economizes the well known Parzen window estimator while preserving feedforward NN architecture, 2) it utilizes class pooling to generalize classes represented by small training sets, 3) it gives smooth discriminant boundaries that often are "piece-wise flat" for statistical robustness, 4) it is very fast computationally compared to backpropagation, and 5) it is numerically stable. The effectiveness of the proposed maximum likelihood training algorithm is assessed using nonparametric statistical methods to define tolerance intervals on PNN classification performance.