A method for determining number of coherent signals with arbitrary plane array

Determining the number of sources impinging on an array of sensors is one of the hot and important problems in array processing field. Research on estimation method which is available in colored noise field has important theoretical meaning. The approach of estimating the number of signals based on information theoretic criteria has good performance in the assumption of white noise, while it always leads to false estimation of the coherent sources in colored noise. An approach is presented to determine number of signals, it combined information theoretic criteria and eigenvalue correction, the method uses maximum likelihood(ML) and information theoretic criteria to estimate coherent signals alternately, then eliminate the inequality of the eigenvalues caused by colored noise by correcting the noise eigenvalues, and computer simulation results prove the effective performance of the method.