Knowledge-aided robust adaptive beamforming with small snapshots

A robust adaptive beamforming method is proposed to combat arbitrary array steering vector (SV) mismatches and small sample size. First, with the imprecise knowledge of the array manifold and angular sectors of the interferences, an a priori covariance matrix can be acquired. Secondly, a theoretically optimal covariance matrix can be obtained by combining an a priori covariance matrix with the sample covariance matrix. Finally, the mismatch vector between the actual and presumed SV can be estimated by solving a quadratic convex optimisation problem.