- - -

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Received: 5 September 2022 Revised: 10 October 2022 Accepted: 4 November 2022 IET Radar, Sonar & Navigation
DOI: 10.1049/rsn2.12352

ORIGINAL RESEARCH

Phase‐difference measurement‐based angle of arrival estimation

using long‐baseline interferometer

Van‐Sang Doan1 | Thien Huynh‐The2 | Van‐Phuc Hoang3 | Jiri Vesely4

1
Faculty of Communication and Radar, Naval
Academy, Nha Trang, Vietnam
2
Faculty of Electrical and Electronics Engineering,
Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology and
Education, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
3 obtain the actual phase shift of the longest baseline from the ambiguous phase differ-
Institute of System Integration, Le Quy Don
Technical University, Hanoi, Vietnam
4
Faculty of Military Technology, University of
Defence, Brno, Czech Republic
Correspondence
Van‐Sang Doan, Faculty of Communication and
Radar, Naval Academy, Nha Trang, Vietnam.
Email: doansang.g1@gmail.com
Funding information
Ministry of Science and Technology, Grant/Award
Number: NDT/CZ/22/12; National Foundation
for Science and Technology Development
Abstract
This article presents a direction‐finding method based on phase difference measurement
for wide‐ranging applications of electronic intelligence. By including three processing
steps of rotating, re‐scaling, and rounding of phase plane, the proposed method is able to
ences measured from incoming signals with low computational cost. The method's
performance is analysed and evaluated in terms of angle of arrival (AOA) estimation
accuracy and probability of unambiguity by several interferometers of long baselines
designed by multiple antenna elements. Consequently, an optimised array configuration of
four antenna elements is taken into account to obtain high AOA estimation accuracy via
several productive simulations and intensively validated with device measurement in the
practical environment. Regarding the simulation of angle estimation accuracy, the pro-
posed method remarkably outperforms two other existing methods, including second‐
order difference array and correlative interferometers. In the experimental measure-
ment, high AOA determination performance is achieved with the transmitter located
around 35.5 m far from an antenna array and the small average angle estimation error of
1.86° at the direction of 20°. For various directions from −60° to 60° with the steps of 5°,
the results satisfy the actual directions of the transmitter with a standard deviation of less
than 0.5°.

KEYWORDS
angle of arrival, antenna array, direction‐finding system, electronic intelligence, interferometer, phase ambiguity

1 | INTRODUCTION minimum, signal‐balance, and mono‐pulse values, however,

Electronic Intelligence (ELINT) is an activity using technical
equipment to collect the useful information of the objects of
interest [1], such as the presence, the direction, and the position
of signal sources as well as the radio frequency spectrum of
received signals. Angle of arrival (AOA) or direction of arrival
(DOA) is the important information to determine the position
of target [2] which is used for jammer [3] and other weapon
systems [4]. In a general ELINT system, traditional methods
use the amplitude, time‐difference‐of‐arrival (TDOA), and
phase difference of received signals to compute the arrival
angle [5]. Some amplitude‐based methods can determine the
AOA value with a high stability by comparing maximum,
their angle accuracy is low [6]. Several TDOA‐based methods,
comprehensively analysed in refs. [7, 8], were employed to
identify the target location via hyperbolic equations with the
baseline considered over tens of kilometers. Moreover, the
TDOA measurement can be applied for the AOA estimation
with several units to 10‐m baseline [9, 10]. Most of the TDOA‐
based AOA estimation methods need only 2 antennas with the
baseline distance much greater than the half‐wavelength to
determine an unambiguous angle in the 180° field of view
(FOV). However, radio measurement systems are limited by
high error of the tiny TDOA measurement associated with
small distance difference. Additionally, despite capably working
with pulse signals, direction finding systems cannot accurately

-
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© 2022 The Authors. IET Radar, Sonar & Navigation published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of The Institution of Engineering and Technology.

IET Radar Sonar Navig. 2022;1–17. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/rsn2 1


2
- DOAN
measure the TDOA value of continuous wave (CW) signals. On
the contrary, some systems, which calculate AOA based on the
measurement of phase difference, can achieve high accuracy
for the pulse and CW signals. For example, a simple phase
interferometer system configured with a short baseline d ≤ λ/2
(where d is the geometric distance between 2 antennas in an
array and λ is the signal wavelength) can effortlessly measure an
unambiguous phase difference and consequently determine the
AOA of a signal source in the 180° FOV. However, besides the
challenges of manufacturing microwave antenna arrays with
d ≤ λ/2, this short‐baseline interferometer suffers from low
AOA measurement accuracy caused by small aperture [11].
Because the AOA accuracy is mostly proportional to the
baseline length, hence a long‐baseline interferometer should be
studied to improve the accuracy of angle estimation with a
smaller error. Despite the fact that increasing the baseline
length can lead to a phase difference ambiguity in AOA esti-
mation, this problem was addressed by TDOA based [12] and
multi‐long‐baseline interferometer (MLBI) based approaches
[13, 14]. It is worth noting that the MLBI is defined as an
antenna array with N elements, where (N − 1)λ/2 ≪ L, where
L is the array aperture. In the literature, MLBI is so‐called by
sparse interferometer and sparse array [15, 16].
Currently, subspace‐based methods, such as multiple signal
classification and estimation of signal parameters via rotation
invariance (ESPRIT), are other class approaches, which exploit
the Eigen‐decomposition of the covariance matrix of received
signals to determine the arrival angles [17, 18]. These methods
have several advantages, including the array gain improvement,
multiple AOA estimation, and the ability to reject interference.
However, these methods also have the disadvantage of
computational cost. Furthermore, high side‐lobes in the array
beam pattern for very sparse array configuration may result in
incorrect AOA estimation.
In the past, Kendall [19] proposed an effective measure-
ment, in which a novel baseline with an additional phase dif-
ference ambiguity is analysed to improve AOA accuracy. Based
on the combination of two ambiguous phase differences, an
unambiguous AOA could be determined more precisely.
Additionally, the most appropriate antenna configuration is
specified with the spacing ratio M/N = K/(2K + 1) in
ambiguous measurements, where M; N; K ∈ N. A deep anal-
ysis of ambiguity‐resistant three‐ and four‐element in-
terferometers was reported by Goodwin [20], in which the
phase planes (i.e. the relationship of two phase differences) are
taken into account to handle the ambiguity problem success-
fully. The arrays of shared edge elements were accordingly
approved for utilisation in ELINT systems thanks to their
lowest ambiguity probability. Despite giving some relatively
comprehensive investigations, the studies in refs. [19, 20] are
unable to describe the relationship between phase differences
to estimate AOA in the 360° FOV. By taking advantage of a
uniform circular array (UCA) to handle this issue, Pan et al.
[21] significantly enhanced the accuracy of AOA estimation
with a Look Up Table (LUT) mechanism. However, the per-
formance of LUT‐based AOA determination approach is
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ET AL.
deteriorated along with the worse angular resolution.
Furthermore, the system will require a higher memory uti-
lisation and a more expensive computational cost to find the
most appropriate AOA from the higher‐resolution table. In
order to accelerate the processing speed, Cui et al. [22] pro-
posed a two‐dimensional linear interpolation (1DSLUT‐2DLI)
algorithm with the one‐dimensional sorting mechanism which
can associate with UCA models. Although this approach can
yield high AOA estimation accuracy, it performs more slowly
than the second‐order difference array (SODA) method [23].
However, the SODA method provides a low accuracy due to
short second‐order baseline. The phase ambiguity problem is
also resolved by the Chinese remainder theorem, which is
proposed in refs. [24, 25].
In the last decades, the graph (so‐called phase space),
which is able to competently explain the relationship of phase
differences, is attracting more attention to solve the phase
ambiguity problem. Some useful parameters can be extracted
from the graph, such as baseline ratio and allowable maximum
phase difference error (AMPDE), to optimise the array
configuration and consequently improve the accuracy of AOA
estimation. The meaningful information of AMPDE is useful
to calculate the maximal detection range of direction finding
systems by a one‐way passive radar equation [26]. Meanwhile,
the baseline ratio provides the most appropriate configuration
of an antenna array. In ref. [27], Lee et al. developed a phase
space rotation scheme to acquire the information of maximum
phase error in MLBI systems having three and four antenna
elements. However, the rotation method cannot be applied for
more than four element arrays, and the lack of an optimal al-
gorithm of finding a real phase shift value maintains a chal-
lenging issue. To this end, Younger and Reid [28] studied a
novel LUT technique to optimally obtain an unambiguous
AOA. However, most of the LUT‐based approaches typically
suffer from coarse angular resolution and require an expensive
memory for processing.
To handle the aforementioned problems (including angular
accuracy, memory and time consumption, and ambiguity), a
fast and robust AOA estimation method, which has three
principal steps of rotating, re‐scaling, and rounding the
ambiguous phase differences, is proposed in this paper. With
respect to performance evaluation, different antenna array
configurations are intensively analysed to validate the robust-
ness and reliability of the proposed method. Subsequently, the
most appropriate one is considered to benchmark the AOA
accuracy by simulation and further validated in practical mea-
surement with devices. Accordingly, the main contribution of
this work is listed as follows:
� We propose an effective phase difference transformation‐
based method to overcome the phase difference ambiguity
problem in MLBI systems. The method can determine the
actual phase shift of the longest baseline thanks to three
steps of rotating, re‐scaling, and rounding the ambiguous
phase differences. As a result, the proper AOA of signal
source is obtained through the actual phase shift.
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DOAN ET AL.
- 3

sffi�
ffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi�
ffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi�
ffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi�
ffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi�
ffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi�
ffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
� The most appropriate array configuration is recommended ∂Φ 2 2 ∂Φ 2 2 ∂Φ 2 2
to improve the angular accuracy and ambiguity resolution. σΦ ¼ σd þ σf þ σθ
∂d ∂f ∂θ
The proposed method is evaluated and compared with the
SODA and correlative approaches in terms of AOA accu- sffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi� ffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi�
ffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
2π 2 2 d sin θ 2 2
racy to prove its efficiency. ¼ ðsin θÞ σ d þ σ f þ ðd cos θÞ2 σ 2θ
� Some practical signal measurements are carried out to λ f
validate the AOA estimation performance of the proposed ð3Þ
method which can be promisingly applied to direction
finding systems. where σd, σf, and σθ are the errors of antenna positioning,
frequency and AOA, respectively, in which σd is the systematic
error (bias), while σf and σΦ are the random errors.
2 | FORMULATION OF PHASE Regarding the phase difference error depending on the
INTERFEROMETER antenna position bias, we consider the formula as follows:

2.1 | Phase interferometer with two antennas
In general, a classical phase interferometer system measures
the phase shift between two antennas to determine the
AOA of a signal source. Assume that a far‐field emitter
transmits a narrowband signal over the air to an antenna
array configured by two elements in direction θ as shown in
Figure 1.
It is observed that the electromagnetic ray arrives to the
antenna A1 earlier than to the antenna A2, which poses the
phase shift (or time delay) Φ determined as follows:
2πdsin θ
Φ¼ : ð1Þ
λ σθ ¼ σΦ
Based on Equation (1), the angle θ is calculated as follows:
� �
Φλ
θ ¼ arcsin : ð2Þ
2πd
Due to the periodical property in Equation (2), the accu-
racy of angle computation reduces significantly if the actual
phase shift is out of the interval ð0; 2πÞ or ð−π; þπÞ for
d > λ/2. Therefore, the antenna spacing must satisfy the
condition d ≤ λ/2 for an explicit AOA.
If the parameters d, f = c/λ and θ in Equation (1) are
considered independent variables, then the error of phase
difference can be defined by using the law of propagation of
uncertainties [29] as follows:
F I G U R E 1 A direction‐finding system using a classical phase
interferometer with two antennas of an array
2πsin θ
σ Φ;d ¼ σ d ð4Þ
λ
where σΦ,d is the phase difference error due to the antenna
position error. Obviously, if θ = 0°, there is no error of the
phase difference even existing antenna position error. For
θ = 60°, and f = 1090 MHz, the phase difference error σΦ,
d will be smaller than 5° if the antenna bias is less than 4.4 mm.
If we consider d and λ being as constant, then the error of
the angle determination process depends on the antenna
spacing, phase error, signal wavelength, and arrival angle of the
received signal. This dependence is expressed as follows:
λ
; ð5Þ
2πdcos θ
where σΦ is the error of phase shift measurement, which is
typically identified via signal‐to‐noise ratio (SNR):
pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
σ Φ ¼ 1= SNR: ð6Þ
As a result, the error of AOA estimation is accordingly
formulated as follows:
λ
σ θ ¼ pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi : ð7Þ
SNR 2πd cos θ
Explicitly, widening the baseline d can significantly improve
AOA accuracy via the reduction of error σθ. According to (7),
if d = N � λ/2 with N ∈ N, the accuracy of AOA determi-
nation is N times better than that of d = λ/2; therefore, the
longer the baseline is specified, the higher the AOA estimation
accuracy is. However, a long baseline (d ≫ λ/2) risks an am-
biguity problem of the phase difference measurement because
the measurable values of phase difference are limited in the
range of [−π, +π]. On the contrary, the actual phase shift
might be out of the range of [−π, +π] according to the
following equation:
Φ ¼ ϕ þ 2πn; ð8Þ
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4
- DOAN ET AL.

where ϕ is the measured phase difference and n ∈ N is
referred to as a coefficient. To solve the ambiguity problem, it
is important to identify the most appropriate coefficient n to
obtain the actual phase shift thanks to additional antenna
elements.
2.2 | Multi‐long‐baseline phase
interferometer
Several MLBI systems have been developed with more than
two antenna elements, where d > λ/2, in an array. For example,
some arrays with the configurations f0; 1; 2; 4gλ=2 and
f0; 3; 13gλ=2 in ref. [30] are introduced to solve the ambiguity
problems. The first array has the shortest baseline d1 = λ/2
(where d1 is referred to as the distance between the first an-
tenna and the second one) for preventing AOA ambiguity,
whereas the second array deploys a phase plane to mitigate the
ambiguity problem. However, both the arrays pose several
limitations of low angle accuracy and ambiguity resolution,
which will be discussed and analysed hereafter. In this study,
we design an array with the configuration f0; M; N gλ=2, where
M; N ∈ N, M < N, and M, N have the greatest common di-
visor equal to 1. As illustrated in Figure 2, the array has three
antenna elements designated by two baselines d1 = M � λ/2
and d2 = N � λ/2.
The phase differences ϕ1 and ϕ2 of the respective baselines
d1 and d2 wrapped in [−π, +π] are accordingly determined as
follows:
� �
2πd1 sin θ
ϕ1 ¼ mod − π; 2π þ π;
λ
� � ð9Þ
2πd2 sin θ
ϕ2 ¼ mod − π; 2π þ π;
λ will be clarified through antenna arrays with three, four and
where mod(.) denotes the modulo operation. From Equations
(1) and (8), the relationship between Φ1 and Φ2 is presented as
follows:
where n1 ; n2 ∈ N are two coefficients. Notably, the last formula
in (10) is a linear function ϕ2 of variable ϕ1 with the slope
k = N/M. Considering an angle θ limited in the range of (−90°,
+90°), n1 and n2 vary in the ranges of ½⌈ − ðM þ 1Þ=2⌉;
⌊ðM þ 1Þ=2⌋� and ½⌈ − ðN þ 1Þ=2⌉; ⌊ðN þ 1Þ=2⌋� respec-
tively. Graphically, the relationship of phase differences ϕ1 and
ϕ2 is described via a phase plane shown in Figure 3. The phase
lines (in blue) present the ideal phase difference points (i.e.
without noise). It is noted that the line numbers in the phase
plane correspond to the coefficient n2. The uniform distances
between neighbouring phase lines are calculated as follows:
360°
V ¼ pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi: ð11Þ
M2 þ N2
The measured phase difference point (green point) with
random noise might not be positioned in the phase lines,
therefore, we need to find the nearest line of this point to
determine n2 (corresponding to the actual phase shift Φ2). For
example, n2 = 1 is determined via the phase plane in Figure 3.
We propose a novel algorithm for accurately determining n2
with less computational complexity. In addition, an optimal
array configuration associated with the algorithm is recom-
mended to obtain a good performance.
3 | PHASE DIFFERENCE
TRANSFORMATION‐BASED METHOD
FOR OBTAINING UNAMBIGUOUS PHASE
SHIFT
In this section, we propose a novel method for obtaining an
unambiguous phase shift, and consequently, a respective ac-
curate AOA is determined. Accordingly, the proposed method
more than four elements.

Φ2 d 2 ϕ2 þ n2 2π N
¼ ⇔ ¼
Φ1 d 1 ϕ1 þ n1 2π M
� � ð10Þ
N Nn1 − Mn2
⇔ ϕ2 ¼ ϕ1 þ 2π ;
M M

F I G U R E 3 Relationship of phase differences corresponding with

FIGURE 2 Phase interferometer of 3‐element array d1 = 5λ/2 and d2 = 8λ/2
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DOAN ET AL.
- 5

3.1 | Three‐element antenna array α ¼ arctanðM=NÞ: ð13Þ

The distance between neighbouring phase lines is calcu-

With the configuration of recommended antenna array, the
lated by Equation (11).
actual phase shift of the largest baseline d2 is potentially
Rotation step: As shown in Figure 4b, the phase plane and
determined using the phase plane transformation with rota-
measured point are rotated about the angle α by follows:
tion, re‐scaling, and rounding. In particular, the algorithm for
obtaining unambiguous phase shift is expressed by the � � � � � �
following steps: ϕ1n cos α −sin α ϕ1
¼ � : ð14Þ
Initialisation step: According to (10), the phase plane is ϕ2n sin α cos α ϕ2
produced by array configuration parameters, for example,
d1 = 5λ/2 and d2 = 8λ/2. The lines of phase plane are char-
acterised by the coefficient n2. Regarding an �illustration Re‐scaling step: After rotation, the phase lines, which are
� shown
in Figure 4a with the measured point P ϕ1 ; ϕ2 , a one‐
^ ^ being perpendicular to the horizontal axis, are spaced evenly by
distance V. Therefore, the horizontal axis is re‐scaled by
dimensional matrix C containing all labelled numbers in a 2D dividing the phase distance V to the phase lines horizontally
phase plane is given as follows: distributed in the integer values.
2 3 2 3
C ¼ ½2; −1; −4; 1; −2; 3; 0; −3; 2; −1; 4; 1; −2�: ð12Þ ^ 1n
ϕ ϕ1n
6 7 6 V 7
4 5¼4 5: ð15Þ
The angle α, which is defined by phase lines and horizontal ^ 2n
ϕ ϕ2n
axis is defined as follows:

F I G U R E 4 Principle for obtaining unambiguous phase shift using phase difference transformation in 2D phase plane: (a) original phase plane, (b) rotated
phase plane, (c) re‐scaled phase plane, and (d) determined nearest phase line
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6
- DOAN ET AL.

After this step, the phase lines are scattered in a trans- optimal choice of M and N should be N = M + 1 to gain α
formed phase plane for better visualisation and analysis as approaching to 45°, where the distance V will be largest.
illustrated in Figure 4c. Accordingly, several configurations of antenna array derived from
Rounding step: Because of noise, the measured point is not Equation (21) are summarised in Table 1. Despite presenting the
located in any transformed lines. With the last processing step highest value of V, the array f0; 1; 2; 4gλ=2 has a shortest aperture
of rounding the value ϕ ^ 1n , the measured point approaches to (4λ/2), that induces the reduction of AOA accuracy in Equation
the nearest neighbouring phase line (as illustrated in Figure 4d). (7). On the contrary, the array f0; 25; 30; 36gλ=2 provides the
� � largest aperture, which provides a higher AOA accuracy. However,
^ 1n ;
ϕ1nr ¼ nint ϕ ð16Þ a small AMPDE can reduce the detectable range of system.
Therefore, besides array dimension, the phase measurement ac-
curacy of devices in practice should be taken into account when
where nint(.) denotes the nearest integer function (i.e. rounding selecting a most favourable configuration of antenna array [31, 32].
operation). Consequently, d ¼ f0; 9; 12; 16gλ=2 is considered in the MLBI
The value ϕ1nr now becomes an address index of the system to achieve the good trade‐off between AOA accuracy and
corresponding element in the matrix C. Therefore, the nearest workable range.
phase line of measured point is identified as follows: Instead of using phase plane, the algorithm can acquire
! unambiguous phase shift with the four‐element array via three‐
M þN −1
n2;line ¼ C ϕ1nr þ ⌊2 þ1 : ⌋ ð17Þ dimensional (3D) phase space, which effectively presents the
relationship of phase differences ϕ1, ϕ2, and ϕ3 of the base-
lines d1, d2, and d3 respectively. The procedure of 3D phase
Accordingly, an unambiguous phase shift of baseline d2 is space for accurate AOA estimation is described as follows.
written by: Initialisation step: A phase space is established based on
configuration parameters of the interferometer array. Accord-
Φ ^ 2 þ 2πn2;line :
^2 ¼ ϕ ð18Þ ingly, the relationship between actual phase shift and ambiguous
phase difference of the baseline d3 is expressed as follows:
Finally, the correct AOA is estimated as follows:
Φ3 ¼ ϕ3 þ 2πn3 ; ð22Þ
� �
^ where n3 is calculated by the following equation:
^θ ¼ arcsin Φ2 λ : ð19Þ
2πd2 � �
d 3 sin θ
n3 ¼ nint for θ ∈ ½−90o ; 90o �: ð23Þ
3.2 | Four‐element antenna array λ

With regard to a four‐element array, we consider three baselines The values of n3 are labelled on the lines of phase space, as
with a common element as a phase reference, which should be shown in Figure 5a. A two‐dimensional matrix C specialised by
placed at the array edge for leveraging the largest baseline. the number of all annotated phase lines in 3D phase space is
Supposing a four‐element array d ¼ f0; d 1 ; d 2 ; d 3 g can be given as follows:
divided into two three‐element arrays, including d1 ¼ f0; d 1 ; d 2 g
2 3
and d2 ¼ f0; d 2 ; d 3 g, where λ/2 ≪ d1 < d2 < d3. The baseline 0 0 0 −1 3 7 −5
ratios in two arrays d1 and d2 are specified by k1 = d2/d1 and 6 0
6 0 6 −6 −2 2 6 7
7
k2 = d3/d2, by which the phase planes are characterised by the 6 0
6 −3 1 5 −7 −3 1 7
7
line distances V1 and V2 respectively. In order to provide a C¼6
6 4 −8 −4 0 4 8 −4 7
7: ð24Þ
uniform AMPDE, the phase distances V1 and V2 should be 6 −1
6 3 7 −5 −1 3 0 7
7
equal to each other, that means, k1 is equal to k2. By substitution 4 −6 −2 2 6 −6 0 0 5
of k1 = k2 = N/M, where M; N ∈ N, we obtain the baseline ratio 5 −7 −3 1 0 0 0
between two sub‐arrays as follows:

d 3 d 2 N d 3 N 2 N 2 λ=2 TABLE 1 Array configurations with four elements

¼ ¼ ⇔ ¼ ¼ : ð20Þ
d 2 d 1 M d 1 M 2 M 2 λ=2 M, N d = [0, M2, MN, N2]λ/2 V ¼ pffi360°
ffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
2 2
M þN
1, 2 f0; 1; 2; 4gλ=2 161°
From Equation (20), the array d is configured as follows:
2, 3 f0; 4; 6; 9gλ=2 100°
� �
d ¼ f0; d1 ; d 2 ; d 3 g ¼ 0; M 2 ; M � N; N 2
λ=2: ð21Þ 3, 4 f0; 9; 12; 16gλ=2 72°

4, 5 f0; 16; 20; 25gλ=2 56°

From Figure 3, it is observed that the smaller M and N must be, 5, 6 f0; 25; 30; 36gλ=2 46°
the larger distance V is obtained. Because M and N are integers, the
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DOAN ET AL.
- 7

F I G U R E 5 Principle for obtaining unambiguous phase shift using phase difference transformation in 3D phase space: (a) original phase space, (b) rotated
phase space, (c) re‐scaled phase space, and (d) determined nearest phase line

The distance V and angle α are defined� by Equations � (11) and Rounding step: The values of ϕ ^ 1n and ϕ^ 2n might not be in-
(13) respectively. A measured point P ϕ ^1; ϕ
^ 2; ϕ
^ 3 (remarked tegers because of additive noise. Therefore, by rounding values
by the red point in Figure 5a) is also visualised in the 3D phase ^ 1n and ϕ
ϕ ^ 2n , we approximate the measured point to its nearest
space for better illustration. phase line (denoted by green point in Figure 5d), at which the
Rotation step: The phase lines and measured point are annotated number is the need‐to‐find coefficient n3,line for un-
rotated by an angle α as follows: ambiguous phase shift Φ3. The following formula presents the
2 3 2 3 2 3 rounding operation:
ϕ1n cos α −sin α 0 ϕ1 � �
4 ϕ2n 5 ¼ 4 0 cos α −sin α 5 � 4 ϕ2 5: ð25Þ ϕ1nr ¼ nint ϕ^ 1n ;
ϕ3n 0 sin α cos α ϕ3 � � ð27Þ
ϕ2nr ¼ nint ϕ^ 2n :

After rotation, the rotated phase lines are parallel with the
vertical axis, as shown in Figure 4b. The values ϕ1nr and ϕ2nr are now column and row indices
Re‐scaling step: The horizontal axes are re‐scaled by the of the coefficient n3,line in the matrix C. Therefore, to find the
distance V. number that associates to the nearest phase line of measured
point, we perform the following formula:
2 ^ 3 2ϕ 3
ϕ1n 1n 8
MþN −1
6
6
6ϕ
7 6
7 6
^ 2n 7 ¼ 6
6
V 7
ϕ
7
7
7: ð26Þ
>
>
< i ¼ ϕ1nr þ
> ⌊
2 þ 1; ⌋
6
4
7 6
5 4 V 7
2n n3;line ¼ Cði; jÞ; where
5 >
: j ¼ ϕ þ M þ N − 1 þ 1:
⌊ ⌋
>
>
^
ϕ3n ϕ3n 2nr 2
ð28Þ
At this step, all phase lines are arranged for being parallel with
the vertical axis and uniformly located at integer values of two The unambiguous phase shift of baseline d3 is then deter-
horizontal axes, as shown in Figure 5c. mined as follows:
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8
- DOAN ET AL.

Φ ^ 3 þ 2πn3;line :
^3 ¼ ϕ ð29Þ nK−1;line ¼ Cðj1 ; j2 ; …; jK−2 Þ; ð36Þ

Finally, the correct AOA that corresponds to the measured where

point is estimated as follows:

�
^
� ji ¼ ϕi;nr þ ⌊M þ 2N − 1⌋ þ 1;
^θ ¼ arcsin Φ3 λ : ð30Þ
2πd3 for i = 1, 2, …, K − 2. Here, the elements of matrix C are
calculated as follows:
� �
3.3 | Antenna array with more than four dK−1 sin θ
elements Cðj1 ; j2 ; …; jK−2 Þ ¼ nint ; ð37Þ
λ

In general, we can specify K − 1 baselines with K − 1
dimensional phase space (so‐called hyper‐space) from an array
of K antennas. It assumes that K‐element array
dK ¼ f0; d 1 ; d 2 ; …; d K−1 g has baseline ratios, which are
designated by follows:
where θ ∈ [ − 90°, 90°]. Similar to three‐ or four‐element array,
the unambiguous phase shift of the baseline dK−1 is deter-
mined as follows:
^ K−1 þ 2πnK−1;line :
^ K−1 ¼ ϕ
Φ ð38Þ

dK−1 d K−2 d 2 N d K−1 N K−2 Subsequently, the accurate AOA of the received signal is
¼ ¼…¼ ¼ ⇔ ¼ K−2 : ð31Þ
dK−2 d K−3 d1 M d1 M estimated:

If d1 = MK−2λ/2, then: � �
^
� ^θ ¼ arcsin ΦK−1 λ : ð39Þ
d 2 ¼ M K−3 � N λ=2; 2πd K−1
�
d 3 ¼ M K−4 � N 2 λ=2; ð32Þ
⋯
dK−1 ¼ N K−2 λ=2: 4 | PERFORMANCE EVALUATION AND
COMPARISON
Based on the array parameters, a phase hyper‐space, which
presents the relationship between phase differences ϕ1, ϕ2, …, In this section, we evaluate the proposed method with
ϕK−1 of the respective baselines d1, d2, …, and dK−1, is different antenna arrays for proving the optimum configura-
accordingly established. The values of coefficient nK−1 that tion. Accordingly, our method competes with other existing
correspond to ϕK−1 are designated on the lines of hyper‐space. approaches in terms of AOA estimation accuracy. It is worth
The unambiguous phase shift of the largest baseline dK−1 is noting that we perform the Monte Carlo simulation with
derived as follows: 10,000 trials for each assessment.
Rotation step:

ϕi;n ¼ ϕi cos α − ϕiþ1 sin α; 4.1 | Optimisation of array configuration

ð33Þ
ϕK−1;n ¼ ϕK−2 sin α þ ϕK−1 cos α;
In general, each DOA estimation method satisfies a particular
for i = 1, 2, …, K − 2. array configuration, therefore choosing a suitable one for the
Re‐scaling step: proposed method is crucial. In ref. [20], four variants of array
baseline were considered for performance analysis, in which
ϕi;n both the three‐element (such as end‐phase left, mid‐phase, and
^ i;n ¼
ϕ ;
V ð34Þ end‐phase right) and four‐element (e.g. independent) arrays
^ K−1;n ¼ ϕK−1;n ; were taken into account. Although they have been compre-
ϕ hensively studied in terms of channel‐pair error parameter in
several previous works, the measured point distribution in
for i = 1, 2, …, K − 2. phase plane and ambiguity probability were evaluated insuffi-
Rounding step: ciently. Regarding the two‐baseline interferometers, three
� � optional configurations are considered: (a) two baselines have a
^ i;n ;
ϕi;nr ¼ nint ϕ ð35Þ shared inner element, (b) two baselines have a shared edge
element, and (c) two baselines have no shared element. As
illustrated in Figure 6, the configurations (b) and (c) reveal the
The values ϕi,nr are now address indices of the coefficient drawback of much‐occupied setup space to obtain the same
nK−1,line in a (K − 2)‐dimensional matrix C. distance d2 as the configurations (a). It should be noticed that

DOAN ET AL.
FIGURE 6 Three options for two‐baseline interferometer configuration: (a) shared edge element; (b) shared inner element; (c) no shared element
FIGURE 7 Distribution of measured phase points for three cases: (a) shared edge element; (b) shared inner element; (c) no shared element
F I G U R E 8 Probability of correct coefficient determination with
different array variants
the configuration (c) needs four elements for two baselines,
consequently, the system complexity and implementation cost
will be more expensive if compared with the others.
The distribution probability of measured points in phase
plane is shown in Figure 7. We observe that three configuration
variants have different measured phase difference distributions.
Concretely, the array of configuration (a) (Figure 6a) contrib-
utes a southwest‐northeast elliptic distribution (Figure 7a) of
measured phase differences due to having a phase‐shared‐
edge‐element, the array of configuration (b) (Figure 6b) pro-
vides a northwest‐southeast elliptic distribution (Figure 7b) due
to phase‐shared‐inner‐element and the array of configuration
(c) (Figure 6c) prefers a circle distribution (Figure 7c) due to
having no‐shared‐element. These distributions show different
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- 9
unambiguity probabilities of coefficient nline (the labelled
number of phase line), which are calculated as follows:
nline;correct
P unambiguity ¼ ; ð40Þ
nline;total
where nline, correct is number of correct coefficients that can be
determined, and nline, total is total number of coefficients that
corresponds to number of measured points in phase plane.
From the numerical results as shown in Figure 8, the shared‐
edge‐element array is better than the shared‐inner‐element
and no‐shared‐element arrays in terms of the rate of correct
coefficient determination at all SNRs. Accordingly, this
assessment offers the shared edge element configuration as the
most appropriate selection for the interferometer baseline.
4.2 | Optimisation of baseline ratio based on
setting space
Despite the fact that an antenna array with more elements and
a broader aperture results in a higher accuracy of AOA
determination, the system requires a more costly hardware and
a more powerful processing unit. Indeed, characterising an-
tenna elements for an optimal array configuration remains a
challenging task, even though it is only favourable to a specific
algorithm. With the constraint of array aperture and element
number,
� the proposed� configuration of antenna array
d ¼ 0; M 2 ; M � N; N 2 ðλL=2N 2 Þ, where M; N ∈ N and
L ≤ N2, is deployed for performance evaluation. Accordingly,
Table 2 shows the superiority of the proposed configuration in
comparison with the integer array in terms of the phase dis-
tance between two neighbour phase lines. Our array
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10
- DOAN ET AL.

T A B L E 2 Comparison of our configuration design with other

possible integer ones in terms of phase distance for four‐element array

L Integer array Vmin Our array Vmin

[λ/2] f0; d 1 ; d 2 ; d 3 g½λ=2� [°] M, N f0; d 1 ; d 2 ; d 3 g½λ=2� [°]
3 f0; 1; 2; 3g 100 1, 2 f0; 0:75; 1:25; 3g 161

4 f0; 1; 2; 4g 161 1, 2 f0; 1; 2; 4g 161

5 f0; 1; 2; 5g 67 2, 3 f0; 2:22; 3:33; 5g 100

6 f0; 1; 5; 6g 46 2, 3 f0; 2:67; 4; 6g 100

7 f0; 1; 3; 7g 47 2, 3 f0; 3:11; 4:67; 7g 100

8 f0; 1; 3; 8g 42 2, 3 f0; 3:56; 5:33; 8g 100

9 f0; 1; 4; 9g 37 2, 3 f0; 4; 6; 9g 100

10 f0; 1; 3; 10g 35 3, 4 f0; 5:625; 7:5; 10g 72

11 f0; 1; 2; 11g 27 3, 4 f0; 6:2; 8:25; 11g 72

12 f0; 1; 5; 12g 28 3, 4 f0; 6:75; 9; 12g 72 F I G U R E 9 Probability of correct coefficient determination with
different baseline ratios
13 f0; 1; 2; 13g 27 3, 4 f0; 7:3; 9:75; 13g 72

14 f0; 1; 3; 14g 25 3, 4 f0; 7:875; 10:5; 14g 72 TABLE 3 Array Configurations with baseline ratio 3:4
15 f0; 1; 2; 15g 24 3, 4 f0; 8:44; 11:25; 15g 72 No. elements dk ¼ f0; d 1 ; d 2 ; …; d K −1 g Aperture V
16 f0; 1; 3; 16g 22 3, 4 f0; 9; 12; 16g 72 3 f0; 3; 4gλ=2 4λ/2 72°
Note: The bold values mean the optimised configurations. 4 f0; 9; 12; 16gλ=2 16λ/2 72°

5 f0; 27; 36; 48; 64gλ=2 64λ/2 72°

configuration method achieves higher phase distance values,
which implies a higher unambiguity probability. Notably, the
arrays denoted in bold are the best configurations regarding the
constraint of number‐of‐element and setting‐space.
Figure 9 presents the probability of unambiguity under
various baseline ratios, such as 3:4, 3:13, and 3:16. Observably,
the ratio 3:4 remarkably outperforms two other ones thanks to
a larger phase line distance. For several proved benefits, a four‐
element array with the configuration of d ¼ f0; 9; 12; 6gλ=2 is
recommended for simulation and measurement evaluation.
4.3 | Angle of arrival estimation
performance based on number of elements
The number of antenna elements has a substantial impact on
the AOA estimation accuracy [33, 34]. It is evident that more
properly antennas result in larger array apertures; consequently,
the AOA estimation accuracy is improved. However, the array
with more antennas leads to a higher cost of hardware. In this
subsection, we demonstrate the prominence of our array
configuration when increasing the number of array elements in
comparison with a uniform linear array with the same element
number. As a result of the previous section, the baseline ratio
3:4 is selected for the proposed configuration in this simula-
tion. Accordingly, Table 3 presents various arrays with the
same baseline ratio for different element numbers. It is worth
noting that the configurations with 3−6 antennas facilitate
greatly increasing the apertures from 4λ/2 to 256λ/2 but
maintaining the same distance (72°) between phase lines in
hyper‐space. The signal that is taken into account for this
6 f0; 81; 108; 144; 192; 256gλ=2 256λ/2 72°
comparison is a narrow‐band with 1024 snapshots and has
arrival angle varying randomly in the range of [−60°, 60°].
Numerical simulation results at various SNRs in Figure 10
indicate that the AOA determination accuracy is significantly
enhanced when increasing the number of array elements.
Additionally, thanks to larger array apertures, our proposed
configuration remarkably outperforms the uniform linear array
with the same element number in terms of AOA accuracy. It is
worth noting that the root mean square error (RMSE) of the
determined AOA is defined as follows:
vffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
uP
uQ ^ �2
u θ − θi
ti¼1 i
RMSEAOA ¼ ; ð41Þ
Q
where ^θi is the determined AOA, θi is the true AOA, and Q is
the number of Monte Carlo simulation.
4.4 | Angle of arrival estimation
performance with different element spacing
Array element spacing directly impacts the AOA estimation
accuracy of the interferometer because it makes the change of
array aperture. In this simulation, the array is configured with
dr = {0, 9, 12, 16}rλ/2, where r is the element spacing ratio
varying from 0.2 to 1.0 with the step of 0.2. Numerical results
in Figure 11 show that the RMSE of AOA estimation reduces

DOAN ET AL.
F I G U R E 1 0 Angle of arrival (AOA) estimation performance with
different element numbers
F I G U R E 1 1 Angle of arrival (AOA) estimation performance with
different element spacing
along with the element array spacing ratio, in which the ratio
r = 1 achieves the highest accuracy thanks to the widest
aperture.
4.5 | Angle of arrival estimation
performance under multipath propagation
conditions
In practice, the signal travels from emitter to receiver on a light
of sight (LOS) and non‐light of sight (NLOS) paths, which can
impact the AOA estimation accuracy of the interferometer
system. Therefore, in this simulation, we evaluate the influence
of NLOS components on the performance of interferometer.
Accordingly, we assume that a LOS signal is incident on the
antenna array in a fixed direction of 10°. Simultaneously, other
unwanted NLOS signals are also incoming to the receiver array
at different random angles. The NLOS signals have relative
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- 11
F I G U R E 1 2 Angle of arrival (AOA) estimation performance with
different levels of non‐light of sight (NLOS) signals
power ratios to the LOS signal ρ arranging from 0 to 0.95 with
a step of 0.05. The time delays of NLOS signals are rando-
mised in the range of [1, 100] ns. Results shown in Figure 12
indicate that the relative power of NLOS components to LOS
one has a substantial impact on the error of AOA determi-
nation. Specifically, the AOA estimation accuracy reduces
significantly under multipath environments. With a power ratio
ρ ≤ 0.2, the AOA RMSEs are still good (≤0.3°). However,
when ρ ≥ 0.25, the interferometer cannot define AOA
accurately.
4.6 | Comparison with second‐order
difference array, second‐order difference array‐
based inference and correlative methods
The SODA method is proposed by exploiting the unambiguity
of the second‐order phase difference corresponding to the
second‐order baseline. Assume that an interferometer has 2
baselines d21 (distance between antennas 2 and 1) and d32
(distance between antennas 3 and 2), then the second‐order
baseline is calculated by dΔ = d32 − d21. The second‐order
phase difference is therefore defined as follows:
2π sin θ 2πdΔ sin θ
ϕΔ ¼ Φ32 − Φ21 ¼ ðd32 − d 21 Þ ¼ ; ð42Þ
λ λ
where Φ32 and Φ21 are the phase shift of baselines d32 and d21
respectively. The following equation determines the AOA of
signal:
� �
ϕΔ λ
θ ¼ arcsin : ð43Þ
2πdΔ
It should be noted that the condition for unambiguous
AOA determination is dΔ ≤ λ/2.
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12
- DOAN ET AL.

An extended SODA method, so‐called SODA‐Based

Inference (SBI), is developed in ref. [35] to improve the ac-
curacy of AOA estimation based on resolved unambiguous
second‐order phase difference. Accordingly, we consider a set
of baselines {dΔ, d21, d31} corresponding to a set of phase
differences {ϕΔ, ϕ21, ϕ31}. Therefore, the inferred phased shift
^ 21 of baseline d21 can be expressed as follows:
Φ

^ 21 ¼ d 21 ϕΔ :
Φ ð44Þ
dΔ

Then, the unambiguous coefficient n21 is calculated as

follows:
� �
Φ^ 21 − ϕ21
n21 ¼ nint : ð45Þ
2π F I G U R E 1 3 Comparison of the proposed method with second‐order
difference array (SODA), SODA‐Based Inference (SBI) and correlative
Based on the unambiguous coefficient n21, the unambig- methods at different SNRs
uous phase shift of the d21 baseline, Φ21 is determined:

Φ21 ¼ ϕ21 þ n21 2π: ð46Þ
Next, using the same process, we can determine the un-
ambiguous phase shift Φ31 of the d31 baseline. Finally, the
AOA can be estimated as follows:
� �
Φ31 λ
θ ¼ arcsin : ð47Þ
2πd31
It is worth noting that any baseline can be used to estimate
the AOA; however, the widest baseline, for instance d31, should
be chosen to provide the highest accuracy.
In another work, correlative interferometer (CI) method
resolves the ambiguity problem by searching the minimum
least square of measured phase differences with pre‐calculated
values in a table via LUT scheme, in which the reference table
can be obtained via practical measurement or simulation [36].
A correct AOA is typically computed as follows:
! frequency and phase difference measurements. Interestingly,
B �
X �2
^θ ¼ arg min ^ b − ϕb ðθÞ
ϕ ; ð48Þ
i¼1
where B is the number of interferometer baselines. Interest-
ingly, the CI is further able to estimate the minimum distance
between the measured point with all points of phase lines in
phase plane.
The interferometer with d ¼ f0; 9; 12; 16gλ=2 is used in
the method comparison. The phase differences of synthetic
signals are computed by using the Fast Fourier Transform.
With regard to correlative method simulation, a 3D LUT is
configured with the angle range of [−90°, +90°] and the angle
resolution of 0.5°. The comparison results of the 4 methods
are reported in Figure 13, in which the accuracy of AOA
determination is measured via RMSE value for randomly
generated AOAs in the range of [−60°, +60°]. It is observed
that the proposed method significantly outperforms SODA
and correlative approaches and has the same accuracy as SBI
for SNR ≥ −5 dB. Interestingly, the proposed and CI methods
have the same performance and both obtain lower errors than
SODA and SBI for SNR ≤ −5 dB. That is because SODA and
SBI are very sensitive with lower SNRs due to errors contained
in second‐order phase differences. The correlative method
using LUT with the resolution of 0.5° results RMSE > 0.1° for
all SNRs and seemly do not improve for SNR > 0 dB. Due to
the widest aperture, the proposed and SBI methods obtain the
same RMSE < 0.1° at SNR > −4 dB, meanwhile SODA re-
quires a higher SNR > 24 dB for that achievement because of
using a very short second‐order baseline.
Figure 14 presents the RMSE of determined AOA at +5
dB SNR. Generally, the proposed method, SBI and SODA
estimate more accurately (i.e. small RMSE) at the middle of
operation range (approximately from −20° to + 20°), being
worse (i.e. large RMSE) at the border, because the angle res-
olution of these methods depends only on the resolution of
the proposed method obtains the highest accuracy (RMSE
< 0.2°) at all angles from −80° to + 80°, while CI reaches the
nearly constant RMSE ≈ 0.15° at different angles. This result
proves that the AOA determination accuracy of CI depends on
the angle resolution of LUT data. With the same wide aperture,
SBI achieves the same accuracy compared to the proposed
method for angles from −70° to +70°; however, the AOA
error rapidly increases when angles are out of this range. With
respect to SODA, the best accuracy is reported for the angles
in range ½−40°; 40°� with RMSE < 1°. Similar to the proposed
algorithm, SODA performs terribly for the angle at the border
with RMSE >2°.
For the computational complexity comparison between
four methods, Big‐O notation is used. Accordingly, the
complexity of SODA, SBI, correlative and proposed methods
are presented in Table 4, where K is the number of antenna
elements, ns is the number of snapshots (samples), nt is the

DOAN ET AL.
F I G U R E 1 4 Comparison of the proposed method with second‐order
difference array (SODA), SODA‐Based Inference (SBI) and correlative
methods with different AOAs at signal‐to‐noise ratio (SNR) = 5 dB
TABLE 4 Computational complexity comparison between three
methods
Method Complexity
SODA O(Kns log ns + K − 1)
SBI O(Kns log ns + (K − 1)(M(4) + 2))
Correlative O(Kns log ns + (K − 1)(M(1) + 1) + nt))
Proposed O(Kns log ns + (K − 2)(M(3) + 1) + 1 + M(1))
Abbreviations: SODA, second‐order difference array; SBI, SODA‐based inference.
number of LUT cells, and M(.) stands in for the complexity of
multiplication. O(ns log ns) is the complexity of Fast Fourier
Transform used for calculating the phase differences. It is
obvious that the SODA method has the lowest complexity;
however, it provides the worst accuracy. The correlative
method has the highest complexity due to LUT searching al-
gorithm with nt cells. The proposed and SBI methods have the
nearly same computational complexity. Although the proposed
and SBI methods are slightly slower than SODA and faster
than CI, they remarkably outperform those methods in terms
of accuracy.
5 | EXPERIMENTAL MEASUREMENT
AND RESULTS
5.1 | Measurement setup
An interferometer system configured by four antennas in a linear
array is set up for this measurement to prove the AOA esti-
mation efficiency in practice. The antenna system is shown in
Figure 15, including (a) an example of representative antenna
element with geometrical parameters, (b) characteristic pattern
of the antenna element in the azimuth and elevation planes,
which are verified in an anechoic chamber. The interferometer
system has the baselines d1 = 9λ/2, d2 = 12λ/2, and d3 = 16λ/2
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- 13
(i.e. d ¼ f32 ; 3 � 4; 42 gλ=2). A transmitter, as shown in
Figure 15c, is used to generate the signal of mode‐S with the
frequency of 1090 MHz. The transmitter was spaced at a dis-
tance of 35.5 m from the interferometer system, which satisfies
2
the far‐field condition 2d3 =λ ¼ 35:2 m. The signal generated
from the transmitter is received by four antenna elements, which
connect to four channels of oscilloscope through four 2‐m
coaxial cables. It is worth noting that the phase shifts between
these radio frequency coaxial cables are identified beforehand
for calibration. For example, the phase shifts between cables 2
versus 1, 3 versus 1, and 4 versus 1 are 10.2°, 3.5°, and 12.3°
respectively. The oscilloscope is set at the highest sampling
frequency of 10 GHz. The signal data from four channels are
recorded for lately processing in the Matlab program.
5.2 | Signal processing
The raw signal data are first pre‐processed (with the detailed
workflow as sketched in Figure 16) for computing some regular
signal parameters, including average carrier frequency, instan-
taneous phase difference, and the pulse envelops of two signal
channels In Figure 16, BP1 and BP2 are denoted as the fourth‐
order band‐pass filters with a bandwidth of 20 MHz and centre
frequency of 1090 MHz. Block H(t) is referred to as the Hil-
bert transform and it is used for generating in‐phase and
quadrature signals:
Z
1 ∞
sðτÞ
hðtÞ ¼ H fsðtÞg ¼ dτ: ð49Þ
π −∞ t − τ
Then, the signal can be presented in the complex form:
HðtÞ ¼ sðtÞ þ jhðtÞ: ð50Þ
The output of detector is an envelope signal, which is the
amplitude of H(t):
qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
AðtÞ ¼ kHðtÞk ¼ s2 ðtÞ þ h2 ðtÞ: ð51Þ
Angle(H(t)) defines the signal phase in time, which is
determined as follows:
hðtÞ
φðtÞ ¼ arctan : ð52Þ
sðtÞ
To calculate the instantaneous carrier frequency of the
signal in time, the diff(φ(t)) block is performed as follows:
1 dφðtÞ
f ðtÞ ¼ : ð53Þ
2π dt
Furthermore, some remaining blocks, denoted TH, &, Δ,
and Average in Figure 16 stand for the threshold, AND logic,
subtraction, and average operations respectively. The pre‐
processing module provides the phase difference and car-
rier frequency in time for AOA estimation. For a better
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14
- DOAN ET AL.

FIGURE 15 System configuration for measurement: (a) antenna element; (b) antenna patterns; (c) measurement scheme; (d) photography of measurement
place

illustration, Figure 17a,b, and c plot an example of input
signal, output average carrier frequency, and phase difference
� respectively. Statistically, the mean ðμϕi Þ and RMSE
in time
σ ϕi of phase differences corresponding to the baselines for
one pulse duration are shown in Table 5, where the RMSEs
are relatively small ðμϕi < 4°Þ. Regarding the carrier fre-
quency, its mean value ðμfc Þ is approximately 1090 MHz with
� SODA method estimate AOA with very high error and di-
small RMSE σ fc of 0.84 MHz, and maximal error of
3.67 MHz.
and correlative methods. Figure 18c presents the estimated
AOA results of three methods and therefore proves that the
proposed and CI algorithm can estimate the signal AOA with
relatively high accuracy and stability. The proposed method
yields the average estimated angle of 21.86° with mean error of
1.86° that are more accurate than CI method with average
estimated angle of 21.98°, mean error of 1.98°. In contrary, the
versity in this measurement.

5.3.2 | Measurement at various directions

5.3 | Experimental results
5.3.1 | Measurement at one direction
In this experiment, we measure the phase difference and AOA
estimation error for the case of one‐direction signal trans-
mission. Concretely, the interferometer system receives the
signal radiated from the transmitter with the direction of 20°.
The results of phase difference and their RMSE of the received
signals are shown in Figure 18a and b, respectively. Further-
more, the proposed algorithm is compared with the SODA
This measurement verified the AOA determination efficiency
of system in the case of which the signal is transmitted from
different angles varying from −60° to 60° with the step size of
5°. The AOA measurement results are shown in Figure 19. It
can be observed that the proposed algorithm achieves the most
accurate AOA estimation at angles approaching 0°, for
instance, the standard deviations are smaller than 0.2° for
AOAs from −40° to −45°, meanwhile, the higher AOA de-
viation occurs when measuring signals are at the border, where
the greatest deviation is 0.49° for AOA = −60°.
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DOAN ET AL.
- 15

T A B L E 5 Statistical values of phase differences and carrier frequency

in one pulse duration

Baseline d1 Baseline d2 Baseline d3

μϕi −110.22° 52.98° −3.33°

σ ϕi 3.58° 1.89° 1.80°

μfc 1090 MHz

σ fc 0.84 MHz

F I G U R E 1 6 Signal preprocessing scheme for getting instantaneous

phase difference and carrier frequency

F I G U R E 1 8 Experiment measurement for the direction 20°: (a) The

phase differences of received signals; (b) root mean square error (RMSE) of
phase difference measurements; (c) angle of arrival (AOA) determinations

F I G U R E 1 7 Demonstration of (a) raw signals, (b) carrier frequency,

and (c) phase difference frequency varying over time

6 | CONCLUSION
In this paper, a novel AOA estimation approach has been
introduced to address the ambiguity problem of phase differ-
ence. In particular, the proposed method having three primary
transformation steps of rotating, re‐scaling, and rounding has
been evaluated and compared with two existing methods via
numerical simulations as well as practical measurement. Based on
the numerical results, we conclude that the phase difference
F I G U R E 1 9 The results for the angle of arrival (AOA) measurement
in the direction from −60° to 60° by step of 5°: (a) Measured AOA vs. real
AOA; (b) root mean square error (RMSE) for each AOA measurement
measurement error, which usually depends on the quality of
devices, has to be smaller than the maximum allowable error
calculated by the half‐distance between neighbour lines in the
phase space. With regard to each interferometer baseline ratio, an

16
- DOAN
appropriate phase space, a maximum allowable error for phase
difference measurement, and a coefficient matrix are selected to
gain the most accurate AOA estimation. Finally, a practical
measurement was performed to prove the efficiency of the
proposed method, where the realistic system with the most
appropriate antenna array configuration has achieved high‐
accurate AOA estimation with the standard deviation lower
than 0.5°.
AUT HO R CO N TR I BU T I ON
Van‐Sang Doan: Conceptualisation; Data curation; Formal
analysis; Investigation; Methodology; Validation; Visualisation;
Writing – original draft; Writing – review & editing. Thien
Huynh‐The: Data curation; Resources; Visualisation; Writing
– review & editing. Van‐Phuc Hoang: Funding acquisition;
Methodology; Project administration; Resources; Writing –
review & editing. Jiri Vesely: Conceptualisation; Data curation;
Investigation.
ACKNO W L E DG EMEN T S
The research is supported by the Naval Academy and the
Institute of System Integration, Le Quy Don Technical Uni-
versity, Vietnam in collaboration with the Department of
Communication Technologies, Electronic Warfare and Radio-
location, Faculty of Military Technology, the University of
Defence in Brno, Czech Republic. This work is funded by
Vietnam ‐ Czech bilateral project “NEO classification of sig-
nals (NEOCLASSIG) for radio surveillance systems” under
grant number NDT/CZ/22/12.
CONF L IC T S OF I N T E R ES T
All authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.
DATA AVAI L A BI LI T Y S TAT E M E NT
Data available on request from the authors.
OR CID
Van‐Sang Doan https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9048-4341
Thien Huynh‐The https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9172-2935
Van‐Phuc Hoang https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0944-8701
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How to cite this article: Doan, V.‐S., et al.: Phase‐
difference measurement‐based angle of arrival
estimation using long‐baseline interferometer. IET
Radar Sonar Navig. 1–17 (2022). https://doi.org/10.
1049/rsn2.12352