Comparison between Time Shifting Deviation and Cross-correlation Methods

TL;DR

This paper introduces the TSDEV method for time delay estimation, demonstrating superior accuracy and robustness over traditional cross-correlation, especially in nonstationary and noisy signals, with practical fiber vibration localization results.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel TSDEV method that improves time delay estimation accuracy and robustness compared to cross-correlation, especially under nonstationary conditions.

Findings

TSDEV achieves a localization error of 2 m with a standard deviation of 21.4 m.

Cross-correlation has a localization error of 70 m with a standard deviation of 208.4 m.

TSDEV shows better suppression of linear drift and common noise.

Abstract

Time delay estimation (TDE) is an important step to identify and locate vibration source. The TDE result can be obtained by cross-correlation method through seeking the maximum correlation peak of two signals. However, the cross-correlation method will induce random error when dealing with the nonstationary signal. We propose a novel time shifting deviation (TSDEV) method to solve this problem, which has been proved to achieve ultrahigh precision localization result in the fiber vibration monitoring system. This paper compares TSDEV method with cross-correlation in detail by simulating TDE process in different conditions, such as signals with arbitrary intercepted length, nonstationary drift and correlated noise. Besides, experimental demonstration has been carried out on 60 km fiber to localize a wide band vibration signal. The typical localization error is 2 m with standard deviation of 21.4 m using TSDEV method. It stands in clear contrast to the result of cross-correlation method, whose localization error is 70 m and the standard deviation is 208.4 m. Compared with cross-correlation method, TSDEV has the same resistance to white noise, but has fewer boundary conditions and better suppression on linear drift or common noise, which leads to more precise TDE results.