Spatial polarimetric time-frequency distribution based DOA estimation: combining ESPRIT with MUSIC

Abstract Spatial spectrum estimation technology has always been the focused research project in an array signal processing of High Frequency Surface Wave Radar (HFSWR). This paper takes the polarization sensitive array for the model and combines with time-frequency analysis method for DOA estimation of HFSWR echo signals, which can make full use of the spatial, time-frequency, and polarized domain information of signals. The time-frequency MUSIC and ESPRIT algorithms of integrated polarization information are studied, and the improved algorithm is proposed based on the advantages and disadvantages of both algorithms. The improved algorithm first estimates the azimuth angles of signals roughly with the polarized time-frequency ESPRIT algorithm and then determines a small scope centered on each azimuth. Within the scope, a more accurate DOA-estimated value is got by spectral peak search with MUSIC algorithm, so it can save computation time on the basis of accuracy of the DOA estimation, and their performance is analyzed by computer simulations