Design of nonuniform linear antenna array geometry and signal processing algorithm for DOA estimation of Gaussian sources

This paper discusses the problem of direction-of-arrival (DOA) estimation for Gaussian sources that have arbitrary correlation: from independent to fully correlated. For independent sources, the antenna array design is governed by two competing considerations: maximum aperture, which inclines toward increasing sparsity for a given number of array sensors, and identifiability, which tends to exclude extreme sparsity. For fully correlated sources, these two competing criteria are augmented by a third which allows for the initialization of DOA estimation by the generalized spatial smoothing (GSS) technique. The maximum number of fully correlated sources is in turn an important factor in the GSS algorithm and subsequent array geometry design. We present a geometry optimization technique that permits accurate DOA estimation of arbitrarily correlated sources. (C) 2000 Academic Press.