ESPRIT-based 2-D direction finding with a sparse uniform array of electromagnetic vector sensors

Aperture extension (interferometry baseline extension) is achieved in this novel ESPRIT-based two-dimensional (2-D) arrival angle estimation scheme using a sparse (a.k.a., thin or thinned) uniform rectangular array of electromagnetic vector sensors spaced much farther apart than a half-wavelength. An electromagnetic vector sensor is composed of six spatially co-located, orthogonally oriented, diversely polarized antennas, distinctly measuring all six electromagnetic-field components of an incident multisource wavefield. Each incident source’s direction of arrival (DOA) is estimated from the source’s electromagnetic-field vector component and serves as a coarse reference to disambiguate the cyclic phase ambiguities in ESPRIT’s eigenvalues when the intervector sensor spacing exceeds a half wavelength. Simulations demonstrate the significant performance gain realizable by this method for radar and wireless mobile fading-channel communications.