2D DOA estimation for noncircular sources using L-shaped sparse array

We present an algorithm for two-dimensional (2D) direction-of-arrival (DOA) estimation of noncircular sources using an L-shaped sparse array. An L-shaped sparse array consisting of two co-prime arrays is firstly introduced. Then, the fourth-order-cumulants (FOCs) of received data are used to construct a FOC matrix (FOCM), by which we can get the estimations of elevation angles. With the estimated elevation angles, the azimuth angles can be estimated by a low-complexity signal separation algorithm. During the procedure used for estimating azimuth angles, no any eigenvalue decomposition (EVD), peak search and pair-matching procedure need to be implemented. Although the aperture is extended significantly, the computation complexity of proposed algorithm still is acceptable. Compared with some analogous algorithms, our approach shows more attractive estimation performance. A lot of simulation results prove the advantages of proposed DOA estimation technology.