Direction finding for an extended target with possibly non-symmetric spatial spectrum

Abstract

We consider the problem of estimating the direction of arrival (DOA) of an extended target in radar array processing. Two algorithms are proposed that do not assume that the power azimuthal distribution of the scatterers is symmetric with respect to the mass center of the target. The first one is based on spectral moments which are easily related to the target’s DOA. The second method stems from a previous paper by the present authors and consists of a least-squares fit on the elements of the covariance matrix. Both methods are simple and are shown to provide accurate estimates. Furthermore, they extend the range of unambiguous DOAs that can be estimated, compared with the same previous paper