A structure-aware DOA estimation method for sources with short known waveforms

For direction of arrival (DOA) estimation with known waveform information, with a larger number of snapshots and a longer duration of the known waveforms, the required storage space for hardware implementation will increase. To save storage resources and also reduce the response time of the array system, the DOA estimation problem with short known waveforms in snapshot size is studied in this paper. We first establish the connection between DOA estimation for known waveform sources and the structured least squares (SLS) technique utilizing a potential rotation invariant property. Next, a constraint is formulated and then transformed into its real and imaginary parts to satisfy the requirements of SLS, and the resultant SLS optimization problem is solved iteratively. Simulation results show that the proposed method has a better performance than the existing DEML method for small numbers of snapshots.