DOA estimation algorithm based on spread spectrum sequence in low signal-to-noise ratio

Abstract Spread spectrum communication is a common communication method in underwater communication. Based on the space-time processor received by the array, it can filter the signals arriving along each path separately. Combined with the diversity of space-time clusters, it can effectively improve the communication system’s reliability. The core problem of the space-time processor is the direction of arrival (DOA) and signal source number estimation. Based on the good self-coherence of the spread spectrum sequence, this paper proposes a multiple signal classification algorithm (MUSIC) for accurate DOA estimation. However, since the MUSIC algorithm uses the received signal’s covariance matrix for DOA estimation, the number of sources needs to be predicted in advance. Under a low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), the signal eigenvalues and the noise eigenvalues of the covariance matrix differ slightly, which makes signal source number estimation difficult. To address this issue, a singular value decomposition method using the delay structure information of the array element is proposed to estimate the number of sources of the spreading sequence under a low SNR. The method proposed in this paper can well estimate the DOA of the signal under a low SNR. Meanwhile, there is no need to convert the signal to the individual sub-bands, which effectively reduces the calculation overhead. At the same time, the Hankel matrix is used to solve the problem that the MUSIC algorithm cannot accurately estimate the number of signal sources under the condition of low SNR. Compared with the conventional algorithm, the Hankel matrix can more accurately estimate the number of signal sources in the case of low SNR. Through simulation experiments, the effectiveness of our DOA estimation algorithm is validated under a low SNR