Strategies for improving angle of arrival accuracy in direction finding systems

For direction finding (DF) systems that derive the emitter angle of arrival (AOA) from the phase of a complex-valued signal, the AOA accuracy can often be improved by processing multiple data records, particularly when the signal-to-noise ratio is low. There are three closely related but distinctly different approaches to improving the accuracy of AOA estimation. The main goal of this paper is to present a unified theory for these AOA averaging techniques using a Gaussian signal model. Detailed algorithm analysis and performance comparisons are provided.