High-Accuracy DOA Estimation for Non-Collinear Sparse Uniform Array

Abstract

Conventional sparse uniform arrays (SUAs) is composed of multiple identical and rigorously collinear uniform linear arrays. By adjusting the baseline length between the subarrays, the array aperture can be arbitrarily large, thus substantially improving the accuracy of the direction-of-arrival (DOA) estimation. However, in practical applications, it is challenging to meet the strict collinearity requirement due to geographical constraints. In this letter, to address this problem, we propose the non-collinear sparse uniform array (NCSUA) model to mitigate the influence of the non-ideal terrain and enhance the practicality of the SUA. A novel estimation algorithm is then proposed to resolve the angle ambiguity in NCSUA and effectively achieve high-accuracy DOA estimation. Compared with the conventional SUA, numerical simulation results demonstrate the superiority of NCSUA employing the new de-ambiguity algorithm in DOA estimation performance and practical applications.