Detection of signals using digital generalized detector

This article is concerned with the problems of using the digital generalized detector for detection of weak signals. The signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) at the output of the detector is determined under conditions that the input SNR is significantly below one. SNR losses at the output of the detector arising as a consequence of clipping, sampling and amplitude quantization are determined as a function of the spectrum bandwidth of the signal at the detector input and sampling rate under three various energy spectrums of the input signals. Comparative analysis between the digital generalized detector and optimum detectors of classical and modern theories is carried out. Comparative analysis demonstrates the superiority of the generalized detector over the optimum detectors.