A theory is developed which is used to find interference source distributions which maximize consumption of the degrees of freedom for

-channel adaptive nulling arrays with arbitrary element positions. For a given number of interference sources, after proper positioning, these sources represent a maximally stressed environment for the adaptive array degrees of freedom. The interference covariance matrix eigenvalues are shown to have a direct bearing on the number of degrees of freedom consumed as well on the adaptive cancellation. Numerical examples are given showing that certain source geometries produce the situation where little or no adaptive cancellation is possible due to the available degrees of freedom being severely taxed.