Signal and noise power estimation of data modeled on weak seismic energy sources

A direct method of estimating the signal power of a seismic data channel is proposed. The proposed method of estimating the signal power is shown to be equivalent to the standard method described in the literature. The proposed method is shown to require less arithmetic operations when fewer then five channels are being processed. A method of estimating the individual channel noise power is also discussed. The estimated values are employed in a SNR enhancement scheme. The estimation errors and the performance of a SNR enhancement scheme utilizing the estimates are investigated as a function of the signal power, noise power, numbers of channels, and sample size. The SNR enhancement scheme utilizing the estimated values performed well for the case of one channel having a different noise power than the remainding channels. Some deterioration of performance occured when all channels had equal SNR as compared to a system without SNR enhancement. A modified version of the proposed estimation scheme for real time operations is presented.