Patent ID: 7019635

Claim:
A method for the detection of M 0 sources common to several observation vectors u (t) and v (t) having different lengths N 1 and N 2 , wherein the method comprises at least the following steps: defining a law of likelihood V uv ([M=M 0 ]/M 0 ) substantially equal to a chi-2 law with 2(N 1 −M 0 ) (N2−M 0 ) degrees of freedom with N1≦N 2 , dim{ u (t)}=N 1 ×1 and dim{ v (t)}=N 2 ×1, determining a detection threshold α m in order to obtain a low probability of false alarms and a number of degrees of freedom that takes account of the lengths N 1 and N 2 and of the number of sources M 0 , and determining the presence and/or the number of the sources M 0 in applying the law of likelihood and the threshold α m .