Propagator Method for DOA Estimation Using Fourth-Order Cumulant

A propagator method (PM) using fourth-order cumulant is proposed to estimate direction-of-arrival (DOA), which firstly computes properly chosen fourth-order cumulants of sensor outputs to construct virtual array with one times larger expanded aperture, then applies the propagator method without eigen-decomposition to estimate DOA. The proposed algorithm doesn´t require the number of signals is smaller the number of sensors, and is computational efficiency as it doesn´t need eigen-decomposition and spectrum peak search. Simulation results, furthermore, show that the correct estimation probability of the proposed algorithm is approximately 80%, and root mean square error (RMSE) of DOA estimation is less than 0.9 degree even if signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) is low only -5dB because of the array aperture extension capability based on fourth-order cumulant.