Fast computation of the spectral correlation via frequency-averaging

•A fast and consistent Spectral Correlation estimator is proposed.•It is a frequency-averaging method and incorporates the Overlap-Save algorithm.•It is competitive when the cyclic frequency range is wide.•The benefits are maintained when the signal length increases. Spectral Correlation (SC) has become a critical analytical instrument for assessing the second-order cyclostationarity (CS) in signals, especially for mechanical vibration signals. Nonetheless, the computational demand for computing SC is considerable. Built upon the Smoothed Cyclic Periodogram (SCP), a consistent estimator named Fast Smoothed Cyclic Periodogram (FastSCP) is proposed to address this issue. FastSCP represents the computational process of SCP through the convolution of spectral components and incorporates the Overlap-Save algorithm for accelerating. Comparison results with other fast SC estimators, including Fast Spectral Correlation (FastSC) and Faster Spectral Correlation (FasterSC), indicate that the proposed method is competitive in terms of both computational cost and memory usage, particularly when dealing with wide cyclic frequency ranges.