EM-Esprit algorithm for direction finding with nonuniform arrays

Abstract

This paper deals with the problem of the Direction Of Arrival (DOA) estimation with nonuniform linear arrays. The proposed method is a combination of the Expectation Maximization (EM) and the ESPRIT methods. The EM algorithm interpolates the nonuniform array to an equivalent uniform array, and then, the application of ESPRIT is possible, in order to estimate the DOA. One of this method novelties lies in its capacity of dealing with any nonuniform array geometry. This technique manifests significant performance and computational advantages over previous algorithms such as MUSIC, specially in the preasymptotic domain, and the comparison with the theoretical Cramer-Rao Bounds (CRB) shows its efficiency.