Abstract:

In order to improve the accuracy of direction-of-arrival (DOA) estimation with distributed arrays in a low signal-to-noise ratio （SNR） scenario, and to loosen the restrictions on array aperture extension, a DOA estimation method based on estimation of signal parameters via rotational invariance techniques (ESPRIT) is proposed for multi-baseline distributed arrays. The configuration of the distributed array is firstly optimized to obtain multibaseline subarrays. Then high accuracy and unambiguous DOA estimates are obtained by the combination of ESPRIT algorithm and the multi-step disambiguation method. Moreover, the threshold effect on the DOA estimation method is analyzed via the maximum a posteriori criterion. Furthermore, approximate methods for SNR threshold and baseline threshold calculations are presented. Finally, simulation results are given to verify the effectiveness of the proposed method.