Beamspace Phase Solving Algorithm for Elevation Angle Estimation

Abstract

This letter discusses the elevation angle estimation problem for a scene containing a direct and a reflected signal. Beamspace processing is an excellent candidate to reduce the computational burden of elevation angle estimation without affecting the multipath phase that contains the reflection coefficient phase and the phase difference between the direct and the reflected signals. In addition, the multipath phase is a function of the target elevation angle. With these considerations, we solve the multipath phase problem without searching within 3D beamspace data and therefore obtain the target elevation angle with a very low computational burden. Under the same prior information, the proposed algorithm manages an estimation accuracy similar to the ones requiring a search under the condition of a certain signal-to-noise ratio. Our evaluation results demonstrate the suitability of the proposed algorithm for engineering applications.