Wideband Beam-Space DOA Estimation Based on Genetic Algorithm

Many of the DOA methods such as MUSIC, ESPRIT and ML are applicable only to narrowband signal sources. However, in many case, using information from multiple frequency bins in a wideband methods is necessary to achieve the processing gain needed to obtain good estimates. A beam-space genetic algorithm (BGA) is introduced for direction of arrival (DOA) estimation of wideband signals in this paper. By transforming array data to beam-space using frequency invariant beam forming matrix, the beam-space genetic algorithm is applied to estimate DOA of wideband signals. Simulation results show this proposed algorithm performs better than sub-space algorithm, maximum likelihood algorithm and element space genetic algorithm in low SNR ranges.