Estimating the direction of arrival at low signal to noise ratios using the principal-component-Burg cascaded system

The problem of estimating the direction of arrival (DOA) of plane waves is considered. The principal component (PC) method has a threshold of 7 dB, below which the mean square error is too large for the estimate to be considered reliable. The PC method is cascaded with the Burg algorithm (BA) to yield estimates of DOAs at signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs) as low as -5 dB. For a single source, this cascading yields an almost unbiased estimated with a very small variance. What makes this method more attractive is the fact that only one snapshot is used for the simulations. The method works in general and requires the solution to a set of second-degree equations. This method appears to be very attractive under adverse SNR conditions and if small number of snapshots are available.<>