Adaptive processing at the subarray level

Abstract

This paper describes a class of partially adaptive arrays with adaptive processing applied to the outputs of steered subarrays. The problem is to detect a signal or estimate its direction of arrival in the presence of jammers. The advantage of applying adaptive processing to subarrays is that it requires much less CPU time than the corresponding fully adaptive processing. The subarray processing equations for the two kinds of problem are described. In this paper, we compare partially adaptive processing performance with fully adaptive processing performance in the case of the following antenna and signal sources: • - array with regularly spaced sensors ; • - between 20 and 100 elements ; • - between 3 and 20 subarrays ; • - a single jammer ; • - desired signal from the antenna zenith. We suggest a method for determining the optimal subarray configurations in this case. An example is given to show that the performance of an antenna with five subarrays is comparable to that of a fully adaptive thirty-element array for eliminating a single jammer with a target at the zenith.