Joint DOA and Polarization Estimation With Crossed-Dipole and Tripole Sensor Arrays
Xiang Lan, Wei Liu, Henry Y. T. Ngan
Abstract
Electromagnetic vector sensor arrays can track both the polarization and direction of arrival (DOA) of the impinging signals. For linear crossed-dipole arrays, as shown by our analysis, due to inherent limitation of the structure, it can only track one DOA parameter and two polarization parameters. For full 4-D (two DOA, and two polarization parameters) estimation, we could extend the linear crossed-dipole array to the planar case. In this article, instead of extending the array geometry, we replace the crossed-dipoles by tripoles and construct a linear tripole array. Detailed proof shows that such a structure can estimate the 2-D DOA and 2-D polarization information effectively in general. A brief comparison between the planar crossed-dipole array and the linear tripole array is performed at last, showing that although the planar structure has a better performance, it is achieved at the cost of increased physical size.