DOA Estimation and Mutual Coupling Calibration Algorithm for Array in Plasma Environment

There is a multipath effect caused by multireflections between the plasma and the vehicle surface, and there are coupling characteristics between array antennas. These two errors will seriously affect the quality of navigation signal. To solve the mutual coupling of uniform linear array (ULA) of plasma, a direction-of-arrival (DOA) estimation algorithm based on mutual coupling correction is proposed. The algorithm is based on the special structure of mutual coupling matrix (MCM) of ULA and combines spatial smoothing algorithms. It solves a quadratic optimization problem under the linear constraint and utilizes peak search technology to obtain DOA. The effectiveness of the proposed algorithm is verified by the simulation results. Numerical simulation is applied in this article to analyze the influence of array antenna from the plasma. In addition, array antenna is calibrated with the mutual coupling calibration information estimated by the algorithm. The result of antenna calibration validates the correctness of the simulation conclusion.