Improving DOA Estimation Accuracy by Rotating Planar Array Antenna

This paper proposes a direct array antenna rotation to improve direction of arrival (DOA) estimation accuracy. Uniform planar array (UPA) can form three-dimensional beams and have superior DOA estimation performance compared with linear arrays. However, when the number of signal sources exceeds the degree of freedom (DoF) onto the azimuth plane, their DOA estimation performance deteriorates. It is because that the projection points onto horizontal/vertical axes of several antenna elements overlap and spatial resolution along each axis is degenerated. In this paper, we present a simplified approach to rotate the antennas mechanically. It can increase the spatial resolution of horizontal plane and thus more number of signal sources can be separable.