A linear prediction-like algorithm for passive localization of near-field sources

A new method for the estimation of the DOA and range parameters of near-field sources is introduced. The proposed method proceed in two steps and use only the second-order statistics of the observations collected from a uniform linear array. The first step is a signal pre-processing which consists in the computation of some properly chosen spatial correlation sequences of the observed signal. This correlation coefficients are shown to be time series harmonic sequences and their harmonic frequencies are nonlinear functions of DOAs and ranges of the source signals. The second step consists in the estimation of the harmonic components using a weighted least square criterion in terms of the linear prediction polynomial of the correlation sequence. The source azimuths and ranges are then calculated from the estimated harmonic components. The effectiveness of the proposed method is illustrated by some numerical simulations.