Smart concatenation of correlative direction finding and super-resolution techniques

Super-resolution techniques (such as MUSIC) allow to estimate the DOA of multiple co-channel signals; despite this feature, they are not implemented in Communication Electronic Support Measures systems when a high DF scan speed is required, because of their computational burden, while the Correlative Direction, considerably less complex than the former, is preferred. In this paper we propose a technique to concatenate the Correlative Direction Finding algorithm with the MUSIC algorithm, so that the latter is applied only when really needed. Another major contribution of the paper is a revision of the MUSIC algorithm; a “quality coefficient” (akin to that typically associated to the Correlative DF) relative to the DOA estimates is devised, and employed to obtain a more robust algorithm. Simulation results along with test performed on real data sets corroborate our analysis promoting our approach as a valid alternative to the classical approach.