Joint DOA and polarization estimation for unequal power sources based on reconstructed noise subspace

Abstract

In most literature about joint direction of arrival (DOA) and polarization estimation, the case that sources possess different power levels is seldom discussed. However, this case exists widely in practical applications, especially in passive radar systems. In this paper, we propose a joint DOA and polarization estimation method for unequal power sources based on the reconstructed noise subspace. The invariance property of noise subspace (IPNS) to power of sources has been proved an effective method to estimate DOA of unequal power sources. We develop the IPNS method for joint DOA and polarization estimation based on a dual polarized array. Moreover, we propose an improved IPNS method based on the reconstructed noise subspace, which has higher resolution probability than the IPNS method. It is theoretically proved that the IPNS to power of sources is still valid when the eigenvalues of the noise subspace are changed artificially. Simulation results show that the resolution probability of the proposed method is enhanced compared with the methods based on the IPNS and the polarimetric multiple signal classification (MUSIC) method. Meanwhile, the proposed method has approximately the same estimation accuracy as the IPNS method for the weak source.