System and Method for Determining Distance Between Signals

A pairwise distance computation transforms first and second signals using an absolute distance preserving mapping, such that a k-norm distance between the first mapped signal and the second mapped signal represents an absolute distance between the first signal and the second signal. The absolute distance preserving mapping maps an element of a first or a second signal to a vector having a size equal to a cardinality of the finite alphabet of the signals. The absolute distance preserving mapping determines a position N of the element in an ordered sequence of symbols of the finite alphabet and determines values for each of N elements of the vector as a fractional power 1/k of positive increments in the finite alphabet. The values for subsequent elements of the vector are determined as zero.