Robust Capon Beamforming via Shaping Beam Pattern

TL;DR

This paper reviews advanced robust Capon beamforming techniques that incorporate various constraints to suppress sidelobes and improve robustness against DOA estimation errors, outperforming standard methods.

Contribution

It introduces and compares multiple structured beamforming methods that enhance robustness and sidelobe suppression in Capon beamforming.

Findings

Beamformers outperform standard Capon in simulations.

Sidelobe suppression is effectively achieved.

Robustness against DOA mismatch is improved.

Abstract

High sidelobe level and direction of arrival (DOA) estimation sensitivity are two major disadvantages of the Capon beamforming. To deal with these problems, this paper gives an overview of a series of robust Capon beamforming methods via shaping beam pattern, including sparse Capon beamforming, weighted sparse Capon beamforming, mixed norm based Capon beamforming, total variation minimization based Capon beamforming, mainlobe-to-sidelobe power ratio maximization based Capon beamforming. With these additional structure-inducing constraints, the sidelobe is suppressed, and the robustness against DOA mismatch is improved too. Simulations show that the obtained beamformers outperform the standard Capon beamformer.