The Journal of Science and Engineering Applications (JSEA)

Abstract

Detecting direction of arrival (DoA) using array antenna is considered as common challenge in different 
typeS of applications, such as sonar, radar, wireless communications. DoA estimation plays an important 
role in direction finding applications. Further, effective DoA estimation technique is the primary 
requirements for smart antenna system to realize beam forming technique. Multiple signal classification 
(MUSIC) and Estimation of Signal Parameters via Rotational Invariance (ESPRIT) algorithms have been 
widely studied, and they are considered as fundamental for the majority of the DoA methods in literature. In 
this paper, the principal of DoA estimations is presented. The main focus of the current paper is on the 
classical methods (Bartletts and MVDR), MUSIC and ESPRIT algorithms. Review of various efforts that 
have been made to enhance the performance of these algorithms was acheived. Then compared their 
performances using simulation results. Further, applying MUSIC algorithm to estimate the frequency of the 
multiple incident signals.  The results show that MUSIC algorithm has higher resolution compared to other 
presented techniques.  It is also shown that the accuracy of ESPRIT method is mainly rely on the number of 
antenna elements. Finally, the principle of Eigenvalues-based method was proposed. It is shown that this 
method has good resolution with very low complexity as it does not need decomposition of covariance 
matrix.