DoA Estimation with Sparse Arrays: Effects of Antenna Element Patterns and Nonidealities

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Lindvall, Niko, Heino, Mikko, Rajamäki, Robin, Valkama, Mikko, Koivunen, Visa
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2025
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author Lindvall, Niko
Heino, Mikko
Rajamäki, Robin
Valkama, Mikko
Koivunen, Visa
author_facet Lindvall, Niko
Heino, Mikko
Rajamäki, Robin
Valkama, Mikko
Koivunen, Visa
contents This paper studies the effects of directional antenna element complex gain patterns and nonidealities in direction of arrival (DoA) estimation. We compare sparse arrays and classical uniform linear arrays, harnessing EM simulation tools to accurately model the electromagnetic behavior of both patch and Vivaldi antenna element including mutual coupling effects. We show that with sparse array configurations, the performance impacts are significant in terms of DoA estimation accuracy and operable SNR ranges. Specifically, in the scenarios considered, both the usage of directional antenna elements and a sparse array result in over 90% reduction in average direction finding error, compared to a uniform omnidirectional array with the same number of elements (in this case eight), when estimating the directions of two sources using the MUSIC algorithm. For a fixed angular RMSE, the improvements in array sensitivity are shown to yield a 4 to 15-fold increase in one-way coverage distance (assuming free-space path loss). Among the studied options, the best performance was obtained using sparse arrays with either patch or Vivaldi elements for field of views of 100$^\circ$ or 120$^\circ$, respectively.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2511_23028
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle DoA Estimation with Sparse Arrays: Effects of Antenna Element Patterns and Nonidealities
Lindvall, Niko
Heino, Mikko
Rajamäki, Robin
Valkama, Mikko
Koivunen, Visa
Signal Processing
This paper studies the effects of directional antenna element complex gain patterns and nonidealities in direction of arrival (DoA) estimation. We compare sparse arrays and classical uniform linear arrays, harnessing EM simulation tools to accurately model the electromagnetic behavior of both patch and Vivaldi antenna element including mutual coupling effects. We show that with sparse array configurations, the performance impacts are significant in terms of DoA estimation accuracy and operable SNR ranges. Specifically, in the scenarios considered, both the usage of directional antenna elements and a sparse array result in over 90% reduction in average direction finding error, compared to a uniform omnidirectional array with the same number of elements (in this case eight), when estimating the directions of two sources using the MUSIC algorithm. For a fixed angular RMSE, the improvements in array sensitivity are shown to yield a 4 to 15-fold increase in one-way coverage distance (assuming free-space path loss). Among the studied options, the best performance was obtained using sparse arrays with either patch or Vivaldi elements for field of views of 100$^\circ$ or 120$^\circ$, respectively.
title DoA Estimation with Sparse Arrays: Effects of Antenna Element Patterns and Nonidealities
topic Signal Processing
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.23028