An alternative approach for angle of arrival estimation

Abstract

The Multiple Signals Classification (MUSIC) algorithm is the most popular algorithm for estimating the Angle of Arrival (AOA) of the received signals. This algorithm is based on the calculation of thermal noise Eigenvalues and the corresponding Eigen vectors. All researches in this field assumed isotropic sensors to form the array antennas. However, for practical application in V/UHF, like half-wave dipole or any type of wired antennas. When MUSIC algorithm is tested with a half-wave dipole which has a directive pattern in E-plane, a false reading is raised from the two angles coincide with the dipole element axis. It is found that the MUSIC algorithm does not take into consideration the nulls which result from the pattern multiplication between array factor AF (θ) and element pattern f (θ). This paper suggests an alternative approach for estimating the angle of arrival by deriving a new DF formula based on the modification of adaptive array processor in conjunction with minimum noise variance constrain algorithm to work as angle of arrival estimator instead of working as an interference canceller. The results show that the suggested approach shows a quite good results without false readings or degradation in the performance of AOA estimation.