A statistical and physical mechanisms-based interference and noise model for array observations

A statistical noise model is developed from mathematical modeling of the physical mechanisms that generate noise in communication receivers employing antenna arrays. Such models have been lacking for cases where the antenna observations may be statistically dependent from antenna to antenna. The model is developed by generalizing an approach for single antenna cases suggested by Middleton (1967, 1974, 1976, 1977). The model derived here is applicable to a wide variety of physical situations. The focus is primarily on problems defined by Middleton to be Class A interference. The number of noise sources in a small region of space is assumed to be Poisson distributed, and the emission times are assumed to be uniformly distributed over a long time interval. Finally, an additive Gaussian background component is included to represent the thermal noise that is always present in real receivers