Array Element Selection Strategies for Interference Suppression in Reconfigurable Tripole Antenna Array Systems

Compared with the scalar array, the polarization-sensitive array (PSA) possesses a more powerful anti-jamming ability in adaptive array processing. However, each antenna of the traditional PSA requires two or more radiofrequency (RF) front-ends, which results in proliferation in computational complexity and even configuration redundancy that has little impact on performance. Besides, the RF front-end is much more expensive than the antenna, making the cost extremely high when considering a large PSA. Therefore, it is essential to search for a PSA reconfiguration approach that utilizes fewer RF front-ends and can generate excellent interference rejection performance. In this work, we devise a new PSA reconfiguration strategy, termed dipole selection, to employ fewer dipoles and RF front-ends to acquire a high signal to interference plus noise ratio (SINR). And the strategy is implemented by controlling the RF switch between the RF front-end and the dipole. The polarization-spatial correlation coefficient (PSCC), characterizing the difference between desired signal and interference in the polarization-spatial domain, is proposed to analyze the effect of PSA reconfiguration on anti-interference performance. Subsequently, the problem of dipole selection is addressed with two proposed methods, named Quadratic-Over-Linear Fraction (QOLF) and Correlation Measurement Elimination (CME), respectively. Numerical and experimental simulation results demonstrate the correctness and effectiveness of the proposed strategy and approaches.