A novel multi-dimensional spectrum estimation technique

Conventionally, to multi-dimensional spectral estimation techniques, each data snapshot in space is captured simultaneously in time. The size of the antenna array is dependent on the area of interest. In this paper, we propose a data measurement technique, which does not collect data samples within each snapshot in space simultaneously but sequentially along a predefined path, and a spectral estimation technique, which is based on the Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT), for the collected data. The key idea of these techniques is to create a large synthetic antenna aperture by displacing a small antenna array and by assuming uniform plan impinging waves. The performance is evaluated by simulation. The applications of the proposed techniques include synthetic aperture radar, radar processing and sonar systems.