Resolving power of MUSIC-like algorithms for circular or rectilinear correlated sources in CES data models

International audienceThe concept of threshold array signal-to-noise ratio (ASNR) which is defined as the minimal SNR at which specific high-resolution algorithms are able to resolve two closely spaced far-field sources, allows to quantify and to compare sensors array performance in localizing remote targets. This paper generalizes and extends the expressions of the threshold ASNR given in the literature for the conventional and non-circular (NC) MUSIC direction-of-arrival (DOA) estimation algorithms in the context of uncorrelated stochastic circular or rectilinear Gaussian sources and circular complex Gaussian (C-CG) noise, in a more general stochastic framework. We assume that the sources are correlated with an arbitrary distribution, which is inherent in a context of multipath or smart jammers, and that the noise is circular complex elliptically symmetric (C-CES) distributed, which can model impulsive noise with heavy-tailed distributions. The C-CES and NC-CES distributed observations are also considered to quantify the gain in resolution provided when the sample covariance matrix (SCM) of the observations is replaced by M-estimates of this matrix. Asymptotic approaches and perturbation analysis have been performed to derive closed-form expressions of the mean null spectra of the two considered MUSIC algorithms for both observation models, which allow us to derive, for the first time, general unified explicit analytical expressions of the threshold ASNR along the Cox and the Sharman and Durrani criteria. These expressions allow us to quantify the impact of the non-Gaussianity of noise and observations, as well as of the phase and magnitude of the correlation on the resolution threshold, and to quantify the benefit provided when the SCM is replaced by M-estimates of this covariance matrix for CES observations. Finally, numerical illustrations are included to support our theoretical analysis