Fault Tolerant Matrix Pencil Method for Direction of Arrival Estimation

TL;DR

This paper introduces a fault-tolerant DOA estimation method that combines matrix completion and matrix pencil techniques to accurately estimate signal directions even with antenna element failures.

Contribution

It proposes a novel approach integrating Singular Value Thresholding based matrix completion with the matrix pencil method for robust DOA estimation amid antenna failures.

Findings

Improved DOA estimation accuracy under antenna failure scenarios

Effective detection of failed antenna elements

Enhanced robustness compared to traditional methods

Abstract

Continuing to estimate the Direction-of-arrival (DOA) of the signals impinging on the antenna array, even when a few elements of the underlying Uniform Linear Antenna Array (ULA) fail to work will be of practical interest in RADAR, SONAR and Wireless Radio Communication Systems. This paper proposes a new technique to estimate the DOAs when a few elements are malfunctioning. The technique combines Singular Value Thresholding (SVT) based Matrix Completion (MC) procedure with the Direct Data Domain (D^3) based Matrix Pencil (MP) Method. When the element failure is observed, first, the MC is performed to recover the missing data from failed elements, and then the MP method is used to estimate the DOAs. We also, propose a very simple technique to detect the location of elements failed, which is required to perform MC procedure. We provide simulation studies to demonstrate the performance and usefulness of the proposed technique. The results indicate a better performance, of the proposed DOA estimation scheme under different antenna failure scenarios.