An Ultra-fast DOA Estimator with Circular Array Interferometer Using Lookup Table Method

Abstract

The time-consuming phase ambiguity resolution makes the uniform circular array (UCA) interferometer not suitable for real-time direction-of-arrival (DOA) estimation. This paper introduces the lookup table (LUT) method to solve this problem. The key of the method is that we look up the ambiguity numbers instead of the eventual DOA from the table, and then the DOA is obtained by relatively small amount of calculation. This makes it possible that we are able to shrink the table size while maintain the DOA estimation accuracy. The table addresses cover all possible measured phase differences (PDs), which enables the method to be free of spatial scanning. Moreover, without adding frequency index to the lookup table, the estimator can realize wideband application. As an example, a field-programmable gate array (FPGA) based DOA estimator with the estimation time of 180 ns is presented, accompanied by the measured results. This method possesses the advantages of ultra-high speed, high accuracy and low memory usage.