Abstract A novel nonuniform sampling digital spectrum processing method based on wavelet transform is studied in this paper. The fundamental principle of nonuniform sampling wavelet transform is introduced and the processing procedure is presented from the uniform wavelet to nonuniform wavelet. The nonuniform sampling wavelet transform method is applied to the frequency detection in this paper. The results of the experiments show that it is an effective method for signal detection and it can exactly estimate the frequencies of sinusoidal signals.