Title: Weak signal direction of arrival estimation for colocated multiple-input multiple-output sonar array

Author(s): CHENG Xue; WANG Yingmin;

Affiliation(s): School of Marine Science and Technology, Northwestern Polytechnical University; Key Laboratory of Ocean Acoustics and Sensing (Northwestern Polytechnical University), Ministry of Industry and Information Technology

Abstract: In order to suppress the influence of symmetrical noise component on multiple-input multiple-output(MIMO)sonar's direction of arrival(DOA)estimation under the condition of low signal-to-noise ratio, we propose a DOA estimation algorithm based on covariance matrix reconstruction method. Firstly, the noise field can be decomposed into symmetrical noise field and asymmetrical noise field. We utilize symmetry property of colored noise matrix and the feature that the imaginary part of covariance matrix has no relation with the symmetry noise to remove the real part of covariance matrix. This operation helps to suppress the influence of colored noise on DOA estimation accuracy. Based on the principle of the imaginary matrix part displacement and the dimension reduction transformation method, the real part of covariance matrix is reconstructed, which helps to suppress the bilateral spectrum interference. Thereafter, Toeplitz method is applied for the covariance matrix decorrelation amendment, and a noise subspace is formed by singular value decomposition (SVD). Finally, we can estimate the DOA of target signals. Both theoretical analysis results and numerical simulation results verify the symmetrical noise suppression performance of this algorithm, and the estimation performance of target azimuth is improved obviously. This method has the characteristics of lower operational complexity, higher degrees of freedom and stronger target resolution.