Improved Noise Modeling with Mutual Coupling in Receiving Antenna Arrays for Direction-of-Arrival Estimation

A new method for modeling correlated noise in receiving antenna arrays for direction-of-arrival (DOA) estimation is introduced. The array noise is divided into a coupled and an uncoupled components which originate from the array environment and the internal circuitry of the antenna elements, respectively. While the uncoupled noise power can be determined a priori and be removed from the array received power, the antenna mutual coupling in the coupled noise component can be decoupled in the same way as the antenna mutual coupling in the signals. This results in a very simple but effective MUSIC DOA estimation algorithm. Simulation results are presented to validate and demonstrate the performance of the new method.