Performance Comparison of Several Algorithms for Localization of Wideband Sources, Journal of Telecommunications and Information Technology, 2023, nr 3

In recent years, researchers have tried to estimate the direction-of-arrival (DOA) of wideband sources and several novel techniques have been proposed. In this paper, we compare six algorithms for calculating the DOA of broadband signals, namely coherent subspace signal method (CSSM), two-sided correlation transformation (TCT), incoherent multiple signal classification (IMUSIC), test of orthogonality of frequency subspaces (TOFS), test of orthogonality of projected subspaces (TOPS), and squared TOPS (S-TOPS). The comparison is made through computer simulations for different parameters, such as signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), in order to establish the efficiency and performance of the discussed methods in noisy environments. CSSM and TCT require initial values, but the remaining approaches do not need any preprocessing

ARRAY PROCESSING TECHNIQUES FOR ESTIMATION AND TRACKING OF AN ICE-SHEET BOTTOM

Ice bottom topography layers are an important boundary condition required to model the flow dynamics of an ice sheet. In this work, using low frequency multichannel radar data, we locate the ice bottom using two types of automatic trackers. First, we use the multiple signal classification (MUSIC) beamformer to determine the pseudo-spectrum of the targets at each range-bin. The result is passed into a sequential tree-reweighted message passing belief-propagation algorithm to track the bottom of the ice in the 3D image. This technique is successfully applied to process data collected over the Canadian Arctic Archipelago ice caps in 2014, and produce digital elevation models (DEMs) for 102 data frames. We perform crossover analysis to self-assess the generated DEMs, where flight paths cross over each other and two measurements are made at the same location. Also, the tracked results are compared before and after manual corrections. We found that there is a good match between the overlapping DEMs, where the mean error of the crossover DEMs is 38±7 m, which is small relative to the average ice-thickness, while the average absolute mean error of the automatically tracked ice-bottom, relative to the manually corrected ice-bottom, is 10 range-bins. Second, a direction of arrival (DOA)-based tracker is used to estimate the DOA of the backscatter signals sequentially from range bin to range bin using two methods: a sequential maximum a posterior probability (S-MAP) estimator and one based on the particle filter (PF). A dynamic flat earth transition model is used to model the flow of information between range bins. A simulation study is performed to evaluate the performance of these two DOA trackers. The results show that the PF-based tracker can handle low-quality data better than S-MAP, but, unlike S-MAP, it saturates quickly with increasing numbers of snapshots. Also, S-MAP is successfully applied to track the ice-bottom of several data frames collected from over Russell glacier in 2011, and the results are compared against those generated by the beamformer-based tracker. The results of the DOA-based techniques are the final tracked surfaces, so there is no need for an additional tracking stage as there is with the beamformer technique

Signal Subspace Processing in the Beam Space of a True Time Delay Beamformer Bank

A number of techniques for Radio Frequency (RF) source location for wide bandwidth signals have been described that utilize coherent signal subspace processing, but often suffer from limitations such as the requirement for preliminary source location estimation, the need to apply the technique iteratively, computational expense or others. This dissertation examines a method that performs subspace processing of the data from a bank of true time delay beamformers. The spatial diversity of the beamformer bank alleviates the need for a preliminary estimate while simultaneously reducing the dimensionality of subsequent signal subspace processing resulting in computational efficiency. The pointing direction of the true time delay beams is independent of frequency, which results in a mapping from element space to beam space that is wide bandwidth in nature. This dissertation reviews previous methods, introduces the present method, presents simulation results that demonstrate the assertions, discusses an analysis of performance in relation to the Cramer-Rao Lower Bound (CRLB) with various levels of noise in the system, and discusses computational efficiency. One limitation of the method is that in practice it may be appropriate for systems that can tolerate a limited field of view. The application of Electronic Intelligence is one such application. This application is discussed as one that is appropriate for a method exhibiting high resolution of very wide bandwidth closely spaced sources and often does not require a wide field of view. In relation to system applications, this dissertation also discusses practical employment of the novel method in terms of antenna elements, arrays, platforms, engagement geometries, and other parameters. The true time delay beam space method is shown through modeling and simulation to be capable of resolving closely spaced very wideband sources over a relevant field of view in a single algorithmic pass, requiring no course preliminary estimation, and exhibiting low computational expense superior to many previous wideband coherent integration techniques

Signal Subspace Processing in the Beam Space of a True Time Delay Beamformer Bank

A number of techniques for Radio Frequency (RF) source location for wide bandwidth signals have been described that utilize coherent signal subspace processing, but often suffer from limitations such as the requirement for preliminary source location estimation, the need to apply the technique iteratively, computational expense or others. This dissertation examines a method that performs subspace processing of the data from a bank of true time delay beamformers. The spatial diversity of the beamformer bank alleviates the need for a preliminary estimate while simultaneously reducing the dimensionality of subsequent signal subspace processing resulting in computational efficiency. The pointing direction of the true time delay beams is independent of frequency, which results in a mapping from element space to beam space that is wide bandwidth in nature. This dissertation reviews previous methods, introduces the present method, presents simulation results that demonstrate the assertions, discusses an analysis of performance in relation to the Cramer-Rao Lower Bound (CRLB) with various levels of noise in the system, and discusses computational efficiency. One limitation of the method is that in practice it may be appropriate for systems that can tolerate a limited field of view. The application of Electronic Intelligence is one such application. This application is discussed as one that is appropriate for a method exhibiting high resolution of very wide bandwidth closely spaced sources and often does not require a wide field of view. In relation to system applications, this dissertation also discusses practical employment of the novel method in terms of antenna elements, arrays, platforms, engagement geometries, and other parameters. The true time delay beam space method is shown through modeling and simulation to be capable of resolving closely spaced very wideband sources over a relevant field of view in a single algorithmic pass, requiring no course preliminary estimation, and exhibiting low computational expense superior to many previous wideband coherent integration techniques

White Noise Reduction for Wideband Sensor Array Signal Processing

The performance of wideband array signal processing algorithms is dependant on the noise level in the system. In this thesis, a method is proposed for reducing the level of white noise in wideband arrays via a judiciously designed spatial transformation followed by a bank of high-pass filters. The method is initially introduced for uniform linear arrays (ULAs) and analysed in detail. The spectrum of the signal and noise after being processed by the proposed noise reduction method is analysed, and the correlation matrix of the processed noise is derived. The reduced noise level leads to a higher signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) for the system, which can have a significant effect on the performance improvement of various beamforming methods and other array signal processing applications such as direction of arrival (DOA) estimation. The performance of two well-known beamformers, the reference signal based (RSB) beamformer and the linearly constrained minimum variance (LCMV) beamformer is reviewed. Then, the theoretical effect of applying the proposed noise reduction method as a pre-processing step on the performance enhancement of RSB and LCMV beamformers is studied. The theoretical results are then confirmed by simulation. As a representative example of wideband DOA estimation application, a compressive sensing-based DOA estimation method is employed to demonstrate the improved estimation by applying the pre-processing noise reduction method, which is confirmed by simulation. Next, the idea is extended to wideband non-uniform linear arrays (NLAs). Since, NLA does not have a uniform spacing, the beam response of the row vectors of the transformation is distorted. Therefore, the transformation is re-designed using the least squares method to satisfy the band-pass requirements of the transformation. Simulation results show a satisfactory improvement in the the performance of RSB and LCMV beamformers for the NLA structure. The idea is further extended to uniform rectangular arrays (URAs) and uniform circular arrays (UCAs), as two major types of the planar arrays. Two methods are proposed for reducing the effect of white noise in wideband URAs and for each one, a different transformation is designed. The first one is based on a two-dimensional (2D) transformation and the second one is an adaptation of the method developed for the ULA case. The developed method for the UCA structure is based on a one-dimensional (1D) transformation, with modified modulation for the transformation to satisfy the required band-pass characteristics of the transformation. Same as linear array structures, the RSB and LCMV beamformers are used to demonstrate the performance enhancement of the method for planar arrays