High Accuracy Frequency and 2D-DOAs Estimation of Conformal Array Based on PARAFAC

Abstract

Owe to the varying curvature of the conformal carrier, the conventional direction-of-arrival (DOA) estimation algorithms could not be applied to the conformal array. In this study, a novel joint frequency and 2D-DOA estimation algorithm for a cylindrical conformal array is proposed. Firstly, the snapshot data model is established with polarization diversity (PD) of element patterns. Subsequently, the decoupling between the polarization parameter and DOA can be realized with well array structure design. The parallel factor (PARAFAC) analysis is utilized for the joint frequency and 2D-DOA estimation without parameter pairing. The proposed algorithm can be extended to other array structure with little modification. To illustrate the versatility of the proposed algorithm, the simulation results with the cylindrical conformal array are shown and discussed.