Performance analysis of SURE method for DOA estimation of coherent sources by Uniform Linear Array

DOA (Direction-Of-Arrival) estimation is one of mandatory techniques for accurately detecting radio wave propagation environment around base station and mobile terminals. Many DOA estimation algorithms have already been studied like MUSIC (eigendecomposition & angular search), Root-MUSIC (eigendecomposition), TLS-ESPRIT (some eigendecompositions) and MODE (maximum likelihood). These algorithms generally achieve high accuracy but also need large computational cost. Moreover, most of them require space averaging technique in estimating DOAs of coherent sources. Such technique is worth to reduce signal correlation but often leads worse DOA estimation accuracy due to decreasing the effective number of array elements. The authors have proposed SURE (SimUltaneous Root Extraction) method for high-resolution and low-cost DOA estimation of multiple coherent sources by ULA (Uniform Linear Array). This paper introduces SURE method and analyses its estimation performance in comparison with conventional algorithms through computer simulation.