Direction-of-arrival estimation using signal subspace modeling

A computationally viable algorithm for estimating the direction-of-arrival (DOA) of multiple wavefields that are incident on an array of sensors is developed. The geometry of the array is unrestricted and the incident wavefields may be generated by mixtures of incoherent and coherent emitting sources. In the approach taken, the sensor signals are modeled as a noise-contaminated linear combination of steering vectors which are functionally dependent on a set of DOA parameters. These parameters are to be chosen so that this sensor signal model is most compatible with empirically measured data (i.e., snapshot data). An iterative procedure is developed for selecting the most data compatible set of DOA parameters in both the snapshot domain and the array covariance matrix domain. Critical to the success of such iterative solution procedures is the generation of quality DOA parameters to initialize the algorithm. A sequential beamforming method for this initialization is presented. Numerical examples to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithmic approach are given