Sparse Array Beamforming Design for Coherently Distributed Sources

Abstract

Recently, nonstructured sparse array designs have attracted wide interest due to their capability of providing optimum performance for environment-dependent adaptive beamforming. In this article, we develop a sparse array design approach for adaptive beamforming in the presence of spatially coherently distributed (CD) sources. The proposed approach formulates the design problem via maximizing the output signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR), but it exploits the generalized array manifold of CD sources. Moreover, sequential convex programming is utilized to convert the nonconvex optimization problem into a series of convex subproblems. We also analyze the impact of source distributed shape on optimum array configuration and theoretically prove that when the CD sources are Gaussian-shaped, the uniform linear array (ULA) is exactly the optimum array configuration. The resulting optimum sparse arrays yield higher output SINR and better-shaped beampattern than the structured sparse arrays. Numerical results verify the superiority of the optimum sparse arrays obtained by the proposed approach over the structured sparse arrays.