Techniques of Direction of Arrival Estimation: A Review

Abstract

The problem of locating and finding radiating sources with sensor arrays has been a central topic of research in signal processing. Sensor array processing has found numerous applications in radar, sonar, wireless communications, speech processing and seismology. The aim of Direction of Arrival (DOA) estimation is to use the data received by the sensor array and to estimate the DOA of the incoming signal. The main research area in array signal processing is high resolution DOA estimation methods and algorithms. Determination of signal sources has been used in radar systems, location finding systems in military, electronic warfare systems and various applications such as mobile communication systems. The research in this topic had begun during the 1960s. Firstly, Maximum Likelihood (ML) estimation came into existence in such a way to estimate more than one signal. Earlier, the subarray-based estimation methods were used after Pisarenko’s method. Pisarenko gave this method in 1973 while examining the problem of estimating the frequencies of complex signals in white noise. Then, Multiple Signal Classification (MUSIC) method was developed by Schmidt. Roy and Kailath (1987) developed the Estimation of Signal Parameters via Rotational Invariance technique (ESPRIT) to avoid the disadvantages of MUSIC algorithm. This paper presents a reveiw of such techniques.

Keywords: DOA, MUSIC, ML, Sensor Array, ESPRIT