Simplified and enhanced multiple level nested arrays exploiting high order difference co-arrays

Based on the high order difference co-array concept, an enhanced four level nested array (E-FL-NA) is first proposed, which optimizes the consecutive lags at the fourth order difference co-array stage. To simplify the formulations for sensor locations for comprehensive illustration and also convenient structure construction, a simplified and enhanced four level nested array (SE-FL-NA) is then proposed, whose performance is compromised but still better than the four level nested array (FL-NA). This simplified structure is further extended to the higher order case with multiple sub-arrays, referred to as simplified and enhanced multiple level nested arrays (SE-ML-NAs), where significantly increased degrees of freedom (DOFs) can be provided and exploited for underdetermined DOA estimation. Simulation results are provided to verify the superior performance of the proposed E-FL-NA, while a higher number of detectable sources is achieved by the SE-ML-NA with a limited number of physical sensors

Enhanced High-Resolution Imaging through Multiple-Frequency Coarray Augmentation

In imaging, much attention is paid to increasing the resolution capabilities of a system. Increasing resolution allows for high-accuracy source location and the ability to discriminate between two closely-spaced objects. In conventional narrowband techniques, resolution is fundamentally limited by the size of the aperture. For apertures consisting of individual elements, direction-of-arrival techniques allow for high-resolution images of point sources. The main limiting factor on conventional high-resolution imaging is the number of elements in the aperture. For both passive and active imaging, to resolve K point sources/targets, there must be at least K+1 elements receiving radiation. In active imaging, when these targets reflect coherently - the more difficult case in imaging - an additional constraint is that at least K of the elements must also be transmitting radiation to illuminate the targets. For small arrays consisting of only a few elements, this constraint can be problematic. In this dissertation, we focus on improving resolution by using multiple frequencies in both passive and active imaging, especially for small arrays. Using multiple frequencies increases the size of the coarray, which is the true limiting factor for resolution of an imaging system when virtual arrays are considered. For passive imaging, we show that the number of sources that can be resolved is limited only by the bandwidth available for certain types of sources. In active imaging, we develop a frequency-averaging method that permits resolution of K coherent point targets with fewer than K transmitting and receiving elements. These methods are investigated primarily for linear arrays, but planar arrays are also briefly examined. Another resolution improvement method researched in this work is a retransmission scheme for active imaging using classical beamforming techniques. In this method, the coarray is extended not by using multiple frequencies, but by retransmitting the received data back into the scene as a second transmission and processing the returns. It is known that when this method is used to image multiple targets, the resulting image is contaminated by crossterms. We investigate methods to reduce the crossterms

Stochastic Cramer-Rao bound for DOA estimation with a mixture of circular and noncircular signals

The Cramer-Rao bound (CRB) offers insights into the inherent performance benchmark of any unbiased estimator developed for a specific parametric model, which is an important tool to evaluate the performance of direction-of-arrival (DOA) estimation algorithms. In this paper, a closed-form stochastic CRB for a mixture of circular and noncircular uncorrelated Gaussian signals is derived. As a general one, it can be transformed into some existing representative results. The existence condition of the CRB is also analysed based on sparse arrays, which allows the number of signals to be more than the number of physical sensors. Finally, numerical comparisons are conducted in various scenarios to demonstrate the validity of the derived CRB

Array Signal Processing Based on Traditional and Sparse Arrays

Array signal processing is based on using an array of sensors to receive the impinging signals. The received data is either spatially filtered to focus the signals from a desired direction or it may be used for estimating a parameter of source signal like direction of arrival (DOA), polarization and source power. Spatial filtering also known as beamforming and DOA estimation are integral parts of array signal processing and this thesis is aimed at solving some key probems related to these two areas. Wideband beamforming holds numerous applications in the bandwidth hungry data traffic of present day world. Several techniques exist to design fixed wideband beamformers based on traditional arrays like uniform linear array (ULA). Among these techniques, least squares based eigenfilter method is a key technique which has been used extensively in filter and wideband beamformer design. The first contribution of this thesis comes in the form of critically analyzing the standard eigenfilter method where a serious flaw in the design formulation is highlighted which generates inconsistent design performance, and an additional constraint is added to stabilize the achieved design. Simulation results show the validity and significance of the proposed method. Traditional arrays based on ULAs have limited applications in array signal processing due to the large number of sensors required and this problem has been addressed by the application of sparse arrays. Sparse arrays have been exploited from the perspective of their difference co-array structures which provide significantly higher number of degrees of freedoms (DOFs) compared to ULAs for the same number of sensors. These DOFs (consecutive and unique lags) are utilized in the application of DOA estimation with the help of difference co-array based DOA estimators. Several types of sparse arrays include minimum redundancy array (MRA), minimum hole array (MHA), nested array, prototype coprime array, conventional coprime array, coprime array with compressed interelement spacing (CACIS), coprime array with displaced subarrays (CADiS) and super nested array. As a second contribution of this thesis, a new sparse array termed thinned coprime array (TCA) is proposed which holds all the properties of a conventional coprime array but with \ceil*{\frac{M}{2}} fewer sensors where $M$ is the number of sensors of a subarray in the conventional structure. TCA possesses improved level of sparsity and is robust against mutual coupling compared to other sparse arrays. In addition, TCA holds higher number of DOFs utilizable for DOA estimation using variety of methods. TCA also shows lower estimation error compared to super nested arrays and MRA with increasing array size. Although TCA holds numerous desirable features, the number of unique lags offered by TCA are close to the sparsest CADiS and nested array and significantly lower than MRA which limits the estimation error performance offered by TCA through (compressive sensing) CS-based methods. In this direction, the structure of TCA is studied to explore the possibility of an array which can provide significantly higher number of unique lags with improved sparsity for a given number of sensors. The result of this investigation is the third contribution of this thesis in the form of a new sparse array, displaced thinned coprime array with additional sensor (DiTCAAS), which is based on a displaced version of TCA. The displacement of the subarrays generates an increase in the unique lags but the minimum spacing between the sensors becomes an integer multiple of half wavelength. To avoid spatial aliasing, an additional sensor is added at half wavelength from one of the sensors of the displaced subarray. The proposed placement of the additional sensor generates significantly higher number of unique lags for DiTCAAS, even more than the DOFs provided by MRA. Due to its improved sparsity and higher number of unique lags, DiTCAAS generates the lowest estimation error and robustness against heavy mutual coupling compared to super nested arrays, MRA, TCA and sparse CADiS with CS-based DOA estimation