Sparse Array Design for Azimuthal Direction-of-Arrival Estimation

We propose a novel approach to the design of array geometries for azimuthal direction-of-arrival (DOA) estimation. The proposed array design is related to that of minimum redundancy arrays, but the array sensors are not required to lie on a uniform grid. Based on the proposed array geometry design, we develop a subspace-based DOA estimation technique, which allows to estimate the DOAs of more sources than sensors, using only second-order statistics of the received data. This DOA estimation technique is related to the covariance augmentation technique, but in contrast to the latter technique, it provides nonambiguous DOA estimates for the full 360° azimuth field-of-view.