Bearing estimation in the presence of sensor positioning errors

A new calibration algorithm to compensate for sensor positioning errors in direction finding (DF) arrays is introduced. Transmissions with known bearings are analysed to determine the true sensor positions, which are subsequently used by a conventional bearing estimation algorithm to determine the angles of arrival of unknown transmissions. The proposed calibration algorithm is based on Schmidt´s MUSIC method for bearing estimation. Simulation results illustrate the effects of sensor positioning errors, the improvements obtained using the new algorithm, and its robustness in the presence of other sources of error, such as uncorrelated noise and finite averaging.