My question is basically in regards to how to detect when (in time) a signal 'starts', and it might also be called 'transient detection', or, as I have read in some papers regarding music, the 'onset' of a signal.
The motivation here is ultimately a Time-Delay-Of-Arrival (TDOA) estimate between two signals, but suppose you do not have the luxury of doing a cross-correlation because the signals are either way too long, and/or there is so much multi-path corruption that the cross-correlation method doesnt work. In this case my belief is to look for where a signal 'starts' and go from there.
I am looking for more breadth than depth here, as in, a survey of possible/common methods used in doing such a thing.
Thanks!