L-shaped array-based elevation and azimuth direction finding in the presence of mutual coupling

For two-dimensional (2-D) directions-of-arrival (DOA) estimation problem, both the mutual coupling and the failure in pairing can cause severe performance degradation. In this paper, a new elevation and azimuth direction finding algorithm is developed to overcome the above-mentioned two difficulties in the L-shaped array configuration. The key points of this paper are: (i) constructing several correlation matrices to blindly compensate the effect of unknown mutual coupling using the outputs of properly chosen sensors and (ii) deriving a rank-reduction propagator method to estimate elevation and azimuth angles so as to avoid pairing parameters. Simulation results are presented to validate the performance of the proposed method. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.