Method for vector sensor design based on a spherical mode approach for 3D DoA estimation

A design process for the rapid determination of an efficient vector sensor configuration is presented. The vector sensor is applied to the 3D direction finding based on a spherical mode approach. A criterion of the estimation efficiency has been established allowing to predict the trend of the estimation errors of 3D direction of arrival in presence of perturbations caused by the coupling effects and the surrounding perturbations. The direction finding accuracy is evaluated with this method for several spatial distributions of 6 theoretical antenna elements and for a more realistic sensor with 3 antenna elements.

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