Refining visually estimated arrival times of short duration signals

Estimating the location of a radiating source from recorded sensor signals requires accurate arrival time estimates. If the sensor signals have a shor t time duration, generating accurate arrival time estimates is a challengin g task. This paper proposes a new cross-correlation averaging algorithm whi ch is integrated with a visual 'peak picking' alignment approach to improve the estimation of the arrival times. An important application that results in short time duration signals is seismic activity in mines. This seismic activity is produced by high stress faults in the vicinity of the mining op erations. Locating the source of these seismic events is important for mine safety. This paper focuses on this mining application to demonstrate how t he cross-correlation averaging algorithm can improve the arrival time delay estimation and thus provide better hypocenter location estimates of seismi c events in mines. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.