Parametric spectral moments estimation for wind profiling radar

The purpose of this work is the estimation of Doppler echoes spectral moments. In case of strong overlapping, Fourier-like techniques provide poor results because of the lack of resolution. We propose the use of stochastic maximum-likelihood (SML) and subspace-based methods (WPSF algorithm) for a joint estimation of spectral moments. The statistical performances (theoretical and empirical by Monte Carlo simulations) of estimators are compared with the Cramer-Rao lower bound. The results of tests performed on very high frequency (VHF) times series obtained during Thunderstorm, Arecibo, PR during September and October 1998 validate the model and algorithms and confirm the interest of both approaches.