Application of Subspace-Based Detection Algorithm to Infrasound Signals in Volcanic Areas

Abstract

Infrasonic signals investigation plays a fundamental role for both volcano monitoring purpose and the study of the explosion dynamics. Proper and reliable detection of weak signals is a critical issue in active volcano monitoring. In particular, in volcanic acoustics, it has direct consequences in pinpointing the real number of generated events (amplitude transients), especially when they exhibit low amplitude, are close in time to each other, and/or multiple sources exist. To accomplish this task, several algorithms have been proposed in literature; in particular, to overcome limitations of classical approaches such as short-time average/long-time average and cross-correlation detector, in this paper a subspace-based detection technique has been implemented. Results obtained by applying subspace detector on real infrasound data highlight that this method allows sensitive detection of lower energy events. This method is based on a projection of a sliding window of signal buffer onto a signal subspace that spans a collection of reference signals, representing similar waveforms from a particular infrasound source. A critical point is related to subspace design. Here, an empirical procedure has been applied to build the signal subspace from a set of reference waveforms (templates). In addition, in order to determine detectors parameters, such as subspace dimension and detection threshold, even in presence of overlapped noise such as infrasonic tremor, a statistical analysis of noise has been carried out. Finally, the subspace detector reliability and performance, have been assessed by performing a comparison among subspace approach, cross-correlation detector and short-time average/long-time average detector. The obtained confusion matrix and extrapolated performance indices have demonstrated the potentiality, the advantages and drawbacks of the subspace method in tracking volcanic activity producing infrasound events. This method revealed to be a good compromise in detecting low-energy and very close in time events recorded during Strombolian activity.