Detection and estimation of soliton signals

Soliton solutions to nonlinear wave equations have been recently proposed as signaling waveforms in a variety of communication contexts. One such system modulates the relative positions or amplitudes of multiple solitons generated by a nonlinear ladder circuit. At the receiver, there are inherent difficulties in the problems of parameter estimation and detection of soliton signals due to the nonlinear coupling imposed by the soliton dynamics. In this paper, we demonstrate that the ladder circuit can act as a tuned receiver for the component solitons, naturally decoupling them so that the detection and estimation problems can be solved with standard techniques. We develop robust and asymptotically efficient algorithms for maximum likelihood parameter estimation and present a technique for generalized likelihood ratio test detection.