SLFM: A new DOA estimator for wideband signals

This paper introduces a new direction of arrival(DOA) estimation algorithm for wideband sources called source line fitting method(SLFM). Unlike other coherent wideband methods, such as CSSM, TOPS and WAVES, the new method does not require to decompose wideband signals into multiple frequency components. Instead, it uses time delay information directly to construct the source lines, each of which corresponds to a wideband source, then estimates the DOAs by measuring the angle of source lines, and that is the reason it is called SLFM. The main advantage of SLFM is that it works well when the inter-element spacing of the array is much larger than wavelength, which is usually used to combat multipath fading. Computer simulation is presented to illustrate the effectiveness of SLFM.