Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: In this paper, we establish criteria for the design of small aperture antenna arrays for Direction of Arrival (DOA) estimation. We define a small aperture antenna array as one consisting of a few elements with an average interelement spacing less than or equal to half a wavelength. We use the spatial covariance matrix of the antenna array to derive the design criterion. It is well known that the DOA estimation performance of an antenna array is strongly related to the amount of information in this matrix. Also, the Cramer-Rao Bound of the estimated DOA is closely related to this matrix. We establish and demonstrate that, for optimal DOA estimation performance, a small aperture antenna array should have non-uniformly spaced and dissimilar antenna elements. Since mutual coupling between antenna elements makes their in situ responses dissimilar, instead of mitigating mutual coupling, one should include mutual coupling in the DOA estimation process to enhance the DOA estimation performance of antenna arrays.
Source: Sensors
DOI: 10.3390/s25123606
Authors: Krutant J. Mehta, Inder J. Gupta
Institution: The Ohio State University
Language: English
Subfield: Signal Processing
Field: Computer Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $3,137
OpenAlex ID: W4411133846