A novel displaced coprime parallel array for two-dimensional direction of arrival estimation

Abstract

ABSTRACT The traditional coprime parallel array (TrCPA) is prone to suffer from the problem of angle ambiguity, due to its larger inter-element spacing and limited array aperture, for two-dimensional direction of arrival estimation. And the classic multiple signal classification (MUSIC) algorithm has heavy complexity and has poor estimation ability in some unsatisfactory situations. Both restrict the improvement of angle estimation performance. In this paper, we design a novel displaced coprime parallel array termed NDCPA, by rearranging and misplacing all subarrays of TrCPA along the coordinate axis, which brings about larger array aperture making contributions to superior angle estimation accuracy. Besides, we propose an improved two-step reduced-dimensional MUSIC algorithm to further enhance angle estimation accuracy. The proposed method reconstructs the covariance matrix, which can fully exploit the information contained in uniform linear subarrays. Meanwhile, the transformation of angle domain divides the original two-dimensional search into two one-dimensional searches, reducing complexity to a certain extent. Finally, simulation results verify the effectiveness and applicability of the proposed configuration and method compared with the other structures and methods.