2D‐DOA Estimation for Cylindrical Array with Mutual Coupling

Most conventional direction‐of‐arrival (DOA) estimation algorithms are affected by the effect of mutual coupling, which make the performance of DOA estimation degrade. In this paper, a novel DOA estimation algorithm for conformal array in the presence of unknown mutual coupling is proposed. The special mutual coupling matrix (MCM) is applied to eliminate the effect of mutual coupling. With suitable array design, the decoupling between polarization parameter and angle information is accomplished. The two‐demission DOA (2D‐DOA) estimation is finally achieved based on estimation of signal parameters via rotational invariance techniques (ESPRIT). The proposed algorithm can be extended to conical conformal array as well. Two parameter pairing methods are illustrated for cylindrical and conical conformal array, respectively. The computer simulation verifies the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.