A PARAMETRIC METHOD FOR DETERMINING THE NUMBER OF SIGNALS IN NARROW-BAND DIRECTION FINDING

A new and more accurate method is developed to determine the number of signals in the multisource direction-finding problem. The information-theoretic criteria of Yin and Krishnaiah are applied to a set of new quantities which are evaluated from the log-likelihood function. Based on the asymptotic properties of the ML estimation proved in this paper, these quantities have the properties required by the criteria. Since the information-theoretic criteria use these new quantities, instead of the eigenvalues of the estimated correlation matrix, this approach possesses the advantage of not requiring a subjective threshold, and also provides higher performance than when eigenvalues are used. Simulation results are presented with comparisons to those obtained from the nonparametric method given by Wax and Kailath.