Spatial processing with a single antenna

In this paper we examine the possibilities of performing spatial filtering by dynamically and continuously altering the radiation pattern of a single antenna element. In this way, signals arriving from various spatial directions are acquired in the sensor with different time-varying signatures, due to the continuously changing radiation pattern of the antenna. Focusing on channel sounding problem, we demonstrate how temporal (delays) and spatial (arrival angles) parameters of the impinging signal can be estimated with such an approach. We discuss several possible techniques for varying the radiation pattern of antenna, and examine several possible processing algorithms, while casting our setup as a nonlinear parameter estimation problem and as a compressed sensing scheme. Finally, we demonstrate our approach by simulations.