Performance analysis of joint DOA/TOA estimator

In many applications such as radar and mobile communication, the multipath propagation effects are described as a sum of contributions of a large number of wavefronts that arrives at the sensor array in clusters of rays, distributed around a nominal direction of the signal sources. Based on this observation and on the work of Bengtsson and Ottersten (Proceeding of Norsig-98, IEEE Nordic Signal Processing Symposium, April 1998), this paper jointly estimate the directions of arrival and the times of arrival of scattered sources. A theoretical performance analysis is given in terms of asymptotic error variance and illustrated by a simulation study. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.