Joint DOA and Polarization Estimation with Two Parallel Sparse Dipole Arrays

Electromagnetic vector sensors (EMVS) have attracted growing attention in recent years. However, the mutual coupling effects in practical EMVS arrays may seriously degrade the parameter estimation performance. In order to solve this problem, a novel array configuration consisting of two parallel sparse dipole arrays is proposed. Based on the spatially rotational invariance property between the two parallel arrays and the interdipole spacing inside each array, highly accurate but ambiguous direction-cosine estimates, coarse direction-of-arrival (DOA) estimates, and polarization parameter estimation can be obtained jointly. The coarse DOA estimates are then employed to disambiguate the phase ambiguities in the fine estimates. Compared with collocated EMVS, the proposed array overcomes the mutual coupling problem. Moreover, the DOA estimation accuracy is promoted due to the sparse array aperture extension. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.