  In this paper, we introduce a wideband dictionary framework for estimating
sparse signals. By formulating integrated dictionary elements spanning bands of
the considered parameter space, one may efficiently find and discard large
parts of the parameter space not active in the signal. After each iteration,
the zero-valued parts of the dictionary may be discarded to allow a refined
dictionary to be formed around the active elements, resulting in a zoomed
dictionary to be used in the following iterations. Implementing this scheme
allows for more accurate estimates, at a much lower computational cost, as
compared to directly forming a larger dictionary spanning the whole parameter
space or performing a zooming procedure using standard dictionary elements.
Different from traditional dictionaries, the wideband dictionary allows for the
use of dictionaries with fewer elements than the number of available samples
without loss of resolution. The technique may be used on both one- and
multi-dimensional signals, and may be exploited to refine several traditional
sparse estimators, here illustrated with the LASSO and the SPICE estimators.
Numerical examples illustrate the improved performance.
