Joint 2-D DOA estimation and mutual coupling calibration for uniform rectangular arrays

In this paper, a novel self-calibration method is proposed for uniform rectangular arrays to estimate two-dimensional (2-D) direction of arrival (DOA) in the presence of mutual coupling. By rearranging the perturbed array response in the transform domain, the estimation of 2-D DOA is decoupled from the calibration process, and the aperture loss is avoided as well. Then resorting to the rank reduction criteria, the 2-D DOAs can be blindly estimated just through two sequential steps of one-dimensional searches. Moreover, an accurate estimation of coupling coefficients can also be acquired for array calibration. Compared to the existing method, the proposed algorithm is more numerically efficient with improved accuracy. Simulation results verify the superior performance of the proposed algorithm.¹