Direction of arrival estimation in the presence of array perturbations

Abstract

The performance of most classical direction of arrival (DOA) estimation methods is degraded by the array perturbations. To solve this problem, we present an effective autocalibration method based on a uniform linear array (ULA). The proposed method utilizes the subspace theory and the characteristics of the array mutual coupling. With our method, the DOA and mutual coupling coefficients as well as the phase and gain error coefficients can be estimated simultaneously without any calibration sources. Simulation results illustrate that the proposed method can effectively eliminate the effect of array perturbations and we can obtain a satisfactory performance of the DOA estimation.