Digital beam forming and compressive sensing based DOA estimation in MIMO arrays

The paper presents different processing schemes that have been investigated in order to evaluate the direction of arrival (DOA) with a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) radar. Conventional digital beam forming (DBF) and super resolution algorithm (MUSIC) have been applied. The results provided by them have been compared with a compressive sensing (CS) processing of the virtual elements of the MIMO array. The possible reduction of the number of physical elements in the array, due to the application of CS techniques, has been also analyzed. Experimental validation has been carried out on a test board radar developed at TNO in the Netherlands.