Grating Lobe Suppression for Distributed Digital Subarrays Using Virtual Filling

A receiving array processing method is presented that synthesizes the antenna response of a contiguous array from the outputs of physically separated arrays of subarrays. It involves filling the gaps between the subarrays with “virtual” elements, thus forming a contiguous array. Therefore, the synthesized pattern has no grating lobes, and amplitude tapering for sidelobe control can be applied. The contiguous array's response can be duplicated in a number of directions limited by the total number of elements. The directions of interest would normally be those of the desired signals (main beam) and interference or clutter (low sidelobes). The directions of arrival of the signals of interest must first be determined before synthesizing the contiguous array response. The modified matrix pencil method has been extended to handle the problem of multiple subarrays for both single and multiple snapshots. The performance of the synthesis method is examined as a function of signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) per element and various array parameters .

[1]  Ching-Tai Lin,et al.  Sidelobe reduction through subarray overlapping for wideband arrays , 2001, Proceedings of the 2001 IEEE Radar Conference (Cat. No.01CH37200).

[2]  W. Chen,et al.  Super-resolution direction finding with far-separated subarrays using virtual array elements , 2011 .

[3]  T.K. Sarkar,et al.  Combined CDMA and matrix pencil direction of arrival estimation , 2002, Proceedings IEEE 56th Vehicular Technology Conference.

[4]  Liang Tao,et al.  A novel approach to fast DOA estimation of multiple spatial narrowband signals , 2002, The 2002 45th Midwest Symposium on Circuits and Systems, 2002. MWSCAS-2002..

[5]  Jhong S Lee,et al.  Capabilities of Multiplicative Array Processors as Signal Detector and Bearing Estimator , 1974 .

[6]  Moshe Kam,et al.  Design of phased arrays in terms of random subarrays , 1994 .

[7]  Zhenghui Xue,et al.  Research on the DBF method of virtual element interpolation based on end-fire antenna array , 2012, ISAPE2012.

[8]  L. C. Stange,et al.  Multiplicatively processed antenna arrays for DBF radar applications , 2002 .

[9]  T. Sarkar,et al.  Using the matrix pencil method to estimate the parameters of a sum of complex exponentials , 1995 .

[10]  Songwen Li.  Grate Lobes / Side Lobes Suppression for Sparse Array Design by Using Genetic Algorithms , 2011, 2011 Second International Conference on Innovations in Bio-inspired Computing and Applications.

[11]  M Salazar-Palma,et al.  DOA Estimation using Matrix Pencil and ESPRIT methods using single and multiple snapshots , 2010, 2010 URSI International Symposium on Electromagnetic Theory.

[12]  V.D. Agrawal.  Grating-lobe suppression in phased arrays by subarray rotation , 1978, Proceedings of the IEEE.

[13]  Chang Ren,et al.  Research on grating lobe suppression based on the virtual array transformation algorithm , 2012, ISAPE2012.