A New Real Time Radio Frequency Direction Finding Algorithm for Gaussian and non-

Gaussian Noise Environments

W. Featherstone and H. J. Strangeways

Institute of Integrated Information Systems,

School of Electronic and Electrical Engineering,
University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK

tel: +44 (0) 113 233 2075

fax: +44 (0) 113 233 2032
email: eenwf@electeng.leeds.ac.uk

Abstract
In this paper, a new superresolution direction finding (SRDF) algorithm for multiple incident radio waves is
proposed. Superresolution methods enable resolution of signals separated by less than the n(ztura1beamwidth
of the array. This ability enables the algorithms to separate the closely spaced signals encountered in a
multipath environment. The algorithm is termed Loaded Capon and is shown to be cqpabls of operating on
data sets containing a limited number of data points. The new algorithm is shown to be robust in both
Gaussian and non-Gaussian noise environments. Simulated and measured data, record(edon a multi-channel
direction finding system, are used to demonstrate the algorithm Is superior pegormance robustness over both
the standard MVE and eigen-based techniques such as MUSIC.
Key Words: Superresolution Direction Finding, Array Signal Processing

1. Introduction number of data samples is reduced, the performance

In the derivation and analysis of most radio
frequency superresolution direction finding
algorithms, an idealised noise model is assumed.
The assumptions are made that the noise process
observed at each element of a sensor array is
Gaussian having zero mean and variance 02, and, in
addition, each process is temporally and spatially
uncorrelated. In real radio communication channels,
it is often found that the dominant source of
interference contains a significant noise component
that is impulsive, indicating the probability of large
interference levels. In addition, the noise may not be
independent and identically distributed (iid) due to
correlation of the noise across the array. For
example, correlation may arise due to propagational
effects or may be induced by narrowband filtering of
uncorrelated noise. In such situations, the impulsive
events may be spread over many data samples. For
these real situations there is a severe degradation in
performance for most SRDF techniques.
In this paper we propose a new SRDF algorithm,
termed Loaded Capon, that i s more robust to non-
Gaussian environments than the MVE [ 11 algorithm
upon which it is based and also eigenbased
algorithms like MUSIC [2]. It is shown that, as the
of the standard MVE degrades. The degradation is
shown to be caused by the spread of the noise
subspace eigenvalues of the covari(mcematrix. The
new method overcomes the aforementioned
problems by loading the lealding diagonal of the
covariance matrix with a fraction of the total power
contained within it. Carlson [3] proposed a similar
form of covariance loading for adaptive
beamforming when using sampled matrix inversion.
Results produced through simulation and
measurement are used to quantify the performance
gains through use of the new method. The
performance of Loaded Capon is8 also compared
with the eigenbased method MUSIC, where it is
found to have comparable performance in the
idealized case, but far superior performance in
correlated non-Gaussian environments. The benefits
are obtained without the increase In computational
complexity incurred by employing methods such as
[4][5] that attempt to whiten the noise received at
the array or methods such as hAUSIC that are based
on an eigendecomposition.
This paper addresses the prolblem of limited data
sets, that is, when only a limiled number snapshots
are available for the formation ojf the covariance
matrix, such as, in the case of real time channel

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 evaluation (RTCE). Further, by limiting the
sampling time, it is possible to determine DOAs in
time varying channels in a shorter time interval.
This is particularly advantages when frequency
hopping is being utilized. The advantages of Loaded
Capon are most marked for limited data sets as it is
found that, as the number of snapshots increases in
a stationary channel, the performance of the
ordinary MVE approaches that of Loaded Capon.
The paper is organized as follows. First in Section 2
the theory behind Loaded Capon is introduced. This
includes the theoretical treatment of why the Loaded
Capon algorithm outperforms the original MVE. In
Section 3 the results obtained through simulation
and measurement are given and finally in Section 4
conclusions are drawn from the results presented.
2. Theory
The MVE method determines the Direction of
Arrival (DOA) by evaluating the following spectral
function
The subscript represents the hermitian transpose
operator and a(0) is the steering vector describing
the transfer function between DOA 8 and the output
of the array. R, the estimated covariance matrix, is
defined as
1X,X:
R=-Z
K ,=I
where K is the number of samples and xi is the ith
complex data vector recorded by the receiving array.
The covariance matrix can be rewritten as
R=VAVH (3)
where
A = diag(4 ...AN)
v=[v,v, ... v,]
X, 4 ... & are the eigenvalues of R and v , v, ... v,
are the corresponding eigenvectors.
By use of the Matrix Inversion Lemma, it can be
shown that to within a scaling factor of 1/ h,,,,
(4)
,=I
where 4",,,
is the smallest eigenvalue
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The MVE algorithm can now be evaluated as,
1 1 IC\
Inspection of the right hand side of the above
equation shows that each eigenvector contributes to
the output in the proportion to (4 -An,")/ 4. In the
case of infinite samples every eigenvalue in the
noise subspace has an eigenvalue of X,,, . Thus since
(4 - A,,, ) / h; = 0, the noise subspace makes no
contribution to the output in the infinite sample
case.
In the finite sample case, the noise subspace
eigenvalues are spread, i.e. A,,,,> > ... > A,,,, ,
where m is the rank of the signal subspace. Further,
if the noise in the data samples is not statistically
independent, the noise eigenvalues may also be of
reduced magnitude. In this case
(A$+$- ) / A7+,f 0 (providing A,+, f A,"," ); hence,
the noise subspace is corrupting the output.
If the sample support for the noise subspace can be
made to look infinite, the MVE algorithm should
give similar performance to MUSIC. The new
method achieves this by loading the leading
diagonal of the covariance matrix with a fraction of
the total power contained within the covariance
matrix. The consequence of diagonally loading the
covariance matrix is to add a constant to each
eigenvalue, which has the effect of reducing the
4",,,
(Ani+,- ) / Ant+,term, thus reducing how much the
noise subspace corrupts the output. Providing the
signal subspace eigenvalues are much larger than
the loading level, the effect on the signal subspace's
contribution to the output is minimal.
In addition the spread of the eigenvalues may give
rise to an ill conditioned covariance matrix. In this
case, the diagonal loading will help in the inversion
of the covariance matrix.
The resulting algorithm is more robust to inherent
modeling errors of the covariance matrix. The
modified covariance matrix, R,, used in the new
method is defined as
R, = R + a I (6)
where I is the identity matrix and a is the loading
factor. Simulation carried out by the authors suggest
that an appropriate amount of loading is
a=Tr[R]/100N. T r [ ] is the trace operator, which
 extracts and sums the elements of the leading
diagonal of the matrix.
3. Results.
To assess the performance of the new algorithm,
simulations were carried out using a 10 element
uniform linear array with a half-wavelength inter-
element spacing. In all simulations, two
uncorrelated signals are incident on the array at
84.6" and 95.4", respectively. The variance of only
t ' I
one of the estimated direction of arrivals (DOAs) is 0 5 10 15 20
shown for clarity. The number of snapshots used in SNR (dEl)
the formation of the covariance matrix is altered to
assess the resulting effect on Loaded Capon, MVE Figure 2. Comparative performance of the
and MUSIC. White Gaussian noise is present at algorithms in correlated Gaussian plus Impulsive
each antenna, with a signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of Noise.
12 dB. It is seen from Figure 1 that the variances of Finally, Figure 3 shows the performance of Loaded
the estimated DOAs made by Loaded Capon are Capon for different simulation scenarios using 20
considerably lower than the standard MVE. The samples in the formation of the covariance matrix. It
benefits of using Loaded Capon increase as the is only for low S N R s that the variance of the DOA
number of samples available for the formation of the estimates deviates significantly l'rom the purely
covariance matrix decreases. It will be seen that Gaussian case. Consequently, it is seen that Loaded
MUSIC only outperforms MVE and Loaded Capon Capon is robust to deviations frorn the case of iid
in this white noise environment. Gaussian noise.

'- io 20 30 40 50
0 5 10 15
Numbw of Samples
SNR (dBI
Figure 1. Comparative performance of the
Figure 3. Performance of Loaded Capon in every
algorithms as the number of samples is increased.
scenario considered.
The performance of the algorithms is then evaluated
In addition to the simulated data measured data was
for a non-ideal noise environment. To introduce
recorded using a multi-channel direction finding
correlation into the noise process we adopt the
system. To demonstrate the performance of the new
approach of Sadler [6] that allows correlation in algorithm the accuracy of its AOA estimates was
both the nominal background and impulsive
compared against those made by the original MVE
components. In Figure 2, the performance of the and MUSIC. The algorithms were used to determine
algorithms is shown when both the Gaussian and
the AOA of data received on a path from Hilversum
impulsive components are passed through an auto- (Radio Netherlands), to a receiver located near
regressive (AR) filter of order one. An AR
Hamburg, Germany. The true angle of arrival is
coefficient of -0.9 was chosen for both processes.
known to be 244 degrees, the transmission
The signal-to-impulse ratio (SIR) is set at -20 dB.
frequency was 5.955MHz and the data was recorded
Loaded Capon shows better performance than MVE at 10 GMT on 8 September 1994. The data sets
regardless of the S N R . The performance of MUSIC
consist of sixteen samples taken every 1 2 p , with is
is severely degraded by introducing non-ideal noise.

239

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 a one second spacing between sets. Figure 4 presents
the comparison between the original MVE and the
new Loaded Capon algorithm and shows that, for
the majority of the sets, the MVE fails to correctly
resolve AOA, whereas the Loaded Capon fluctuates
closely around it. Figure 5 gives the results for the
same data as for Figure 4, but here the comparison
is for MUSIC against the Loaded Capon. The new
algorithm slightly outperforms MUSIC on this data
E” I V O ~ 57,
0 5 20 25
lo SetNumber
Figure 4. Plot showing the comparison of the
estimated azimuth determined by the MVE and the
Loaded Capon algorithms.
+ .-‘a.
. + .*t
20 25
Set Number
Figure 5. Plot showing the comparison of the
estimated azimuth determined by the MUSIC and
the Loaded Capon algorithms.
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4. Conclusions
The problem of inadequately estimating the
covariance matrix in the limited sample case has
been highlighted when employing the MVE
algorithm. In addition the detrimental effects on the
MVE algorithm in coloured non-Gaussian
environments have been shown, in particular when
there is an impulsive component present in the
observed data snapshot. It has been shown that the
Loaded Capon algorithm, in which the leading
diagonal of the covariance matrix is loaded can
overcome these difficulties. The results presented
show the improvement in performance (with no
increase in complexity) of the Loaded Capon
algorithm compared with the standard MVE for
both the simulated scenarios and the measured data.
Further, in comparison with the MUSIC algorithm
it is shown the new method has reduced complexity
with comparable bearing accuracy in the purely
Gaussian case, but far superior performance to
MUSIC in the coloured non-Gaussian environment.
5. References
[ 11 Capon J, “High-Resolution Frequency-
Wavenumber Spectrum Analysis” IEEE Proc.,
. pp 1408-1419, 1969.
30 35 40
[2] Schmidt R 0, “Multiple Emitter Location and
Signal Parameter Estimation”, IEEE Trains AP,
V O ~ 34,
. pp 276-280, 1986.
[3] Carlson B D, “Covariance Estimation and
Diagonal Loading in Adaptive Arrays”, IEEE
Trans. AES, vol. 24, pp 397-401, 1988.
141 Friedlander B and Weiss A J, “Direction
Finding Using Noise Covariance Modeling”,
IEEE Trans. SP, vol. 43, pp 1557-1567, 1995.
[5] Le Cadre J P “Parametric Methods for Spatial
Signal Processing in the Presence of Unknown
Colored Noise Fields”, IEEE Trans ASSP, vol.
37, pp 965-983, 1989.
[6] Sadler B M, “Detection in Correlated Impulsive
Noise Using Fourth-Order Cumulates”, IEEE
Trans. SP, vol. 44, pp 2793-2800, 1996.
t
+f‘*4
30 35 40
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