Generalizing MUSIC and MVDR for distributed arrays

We examine the problem of combining data obtained from many subarrays of a distributed array to obtain an estimate of the spatial power spectrum and the location of the sources of any incident wavefields. Since the arrays are not coherent with respect to each other, the correlation between data vectors obtained from different arrays is unknown. Thus, well-known array processing algorithms are not applicable. However, it is possible to combine estimates obtained from each sub-array into one estimate. To this end, we introduce generalizations of MUSIC and MVDR. We demonstrate via simulation that the combined spatial spectrum estimates of source location estimates may provide for resolution of directional ambiguities, estimate of range as well as direction, and higher spatial resolution.