Estimation of angle of arrival in a discrete random scattering environment using a Capon beamformer with a compensation matrix

We analyse the problem of the estimation of the angle of arrival in discrete random scattering media. Assuming incidence of a plane wave, we derive the performance of the determination of the angle of arrival in terms of beamwidth, which reflects the ability to resolve the angle of arrival from several directions. The minimum variance beamformer or Capon beamformer is applied. We demonstrate that in random scattering media the signal arriving at the receiving array shows correlation and is modelled as a Gaussian function, and this correlation deteriorates the ability to determine the angle of arrival. A matrix compensation is introduced to improve the performance by correcting the correlation. The main parameter in compensation is the correlation length. We investigate the effect of the correlation length on the angle of arrival.