A simple decoupled estimation of DoA and angular spread for single spatially distributed sources

In wireless communications, local scattering in the vicinity of the mobile station results in angular spreading. A few estimators (of direction of arrival (DoA) and angular spread) have already been developed, but they suffer from high computational load or are developed in very specific contexts. In this paper, we present a new simple low-complexity decoupled estimator of DoA and angular spread for a spatially dispersed source. The proposed MDS (Music for Dispersed Sources) algorithm does not assume any particular sensor array geometry nor temporal independence hypothesis. Moreover, the estimation of DoA and angular spread does not require knowledge of the angular and temporal distribution shapes of the sources. In addition, the low computational cost of this method makes it attractive.