Radio Transient Detection in Radio Astronomical Arrays

Celestial transient radio sources have attracted considerable scientific interest recently, but their investigation is hampered by the fact that they cannot be effectively detected by commonly used radio astronomy signal processing techniques. One significant obstacle to observing radio transients is intermittent terrestrial radio frequency interference, which can appear as a transient signal. In this article we present a generalized likelihood ratio test detector for near field sources, such as terrestrial interferences, for which no prior knowledge about the steering vector is assumed. The proposed detector has the desirable property of a constant false alarm rate. Computer simulation results suggest that it outperforms the detector used by the Low Frequency Array (LOFAR) radio telescope, and that it can also be harnessed for the detection of far-field signals.