Large information plus noise random matrix models and consistent subspace estimation in large sensor networks

TL;DR

This paper proves the consistency of angle of arrival estimators in large sensor networks using random matrix theory, addressing challenges when sample size and sensor count are comparable.

Contribution

It establishes the consistency of the G-MUSIC subspace estimation method for large arrays with high-dimensional data.

Findings

Singular values of Gaussian noise matrices escape certain intervals with probability decreasing as 1/N^p.

Regularization techniques help confine singular values, enabling analysis of estimator moments.

The proposed method ensures reliable angle estimation in high-dimensional array processing.

Abstract

In array processing, a common problem is to estimate the angles of arrival of $K$ deterministic sources impinging on an array of $M$ antennas, from $N$ observations of the source signal, corrupted by gaussian noise. The problem reduces to estimate a quadratic form (called "localization function") of a certain projection matrix related to the source signal empirical covariance matrix. Recently, a new subspace estimation method (called "G-MUSIC") has been proposed, in the context where the number of available samples $N$ is of the same order of magnitude than the number of sensors $M$. In this context, the traditional subspace methods tend to fail because the empirical covariance matrix of the observations is a poor estimate of the source signal covariance matrix. The G-MUSIC method is based on a new consistent estimator of the localization function in the regime where $M$ and $N$ tend to $+\infty$ at the same rate. However, the consistency of the angles estimator was not adressed. The purpose of this paper is to prove the consistency of the angles of arrival estimator in the previous asymptotic regime. To prove this result, we show the property that the singular values of M x N Gaussian information plus noise matrix escape from certain intervals is an event of probability decreasing at rate O(1/N^p) for all p. A regularization trick is also introduced, which allows to confine these singular values into certain intervals and to use standard tools as Poincar\'e inequality to characterize any moments of the estimator. These results are believed to be of independent interest.