A Novel Criterion to Optimize Array Geometry for Direction Finding

The multiple signal classifier (MUSIC) is a popular sub-space based method to estimate Angle of Arrival (AoA) of narrow-band and uncorrelated signals. With the same number of antennas, the placement of array elements has a significant effect on the array steering vectors, as well as the accuracy of AoA estimation employing the MUSIC algorithm. In this paper, relation of array geometry and AoA estimation accuracy is studied with some theoretic and simulation analysis, and finally, we introduce a novel method for array design (placement of antannas) to get better accuracy in AoA estimation. Several simulation based as well as practical experiments are given to justify the performance of our proposed method.