EIGHTEENTH NATIONAL RADIO SCIENCE COSFERESCE

March 27-29 2001,Mansoura Univ., Egypt WI

ARBITRARY SPHERICAL ARRAY IN SUYERRESOLUTION DIRECTION

FINDING SYSTEMS

M. Mokhtar A. Gam3 H. ElHenawy S. EIRamly

Military Technical Egyptian Arnied Faculty of Eng. Faculty of Eng.
College Forces Ain Shams Univ. Ain Shams Univ.

Abstract

Direction finding of radio activities using an arbitrary array conformed to a spherical surface
is described. It is based on a transformation of the sigiial of the arbitrary array into a uniform
linear virtual one. In this form, a selected direction finding estimator can be applied in the
environment of IncoherenWoherent sources.

1. Introduction

The common requirement of superresolution estimators is that the array of sensors is linear and uniform. In
practice, the array may not be linear as in the cases of surveillanceand cellular phone systems where a uniform
circular array is the appropriate solution. In direction estimation of threat targets, V- or Y-shaped nonuniform
a m y is used in modem systems. In addition, the sensors of the array may be arranged over a sector of a cylinder
or a sphere. The application of the superresolution estimators using these array configurations requires a
preprocessing of the received signal for transforming the signal of nonuniform and/or nonlinear array into a
virtual uniform linear one. The signal of the virtual array is amenable to eigen-decomposition based super-
resolution estimators in the environment of Incolierent/Coherent sources.

The transformationprinciple is applied in [ 11 to the signal of an ideal uniform circular array. The case of a planar
array with arbitrary elemcnt distribution is considered in [2]. The transformation process is an expansion of the
steering vector of the array. The proper function of expansion has to be separable into two components; one in
terms of the a m y geometry and the other describesthe source direction. This concept allows one to proceed
further with non-planar array.

This paper describes the transformation of the received signal by an array conformed to a spherical surface. The
problem formulation and the transfomiation process are introduced in Section 2. Some considerations in the
numerical computation are illustrated in Section 3. The numerical results are presented in Section 4, and
followed by the conclusion.

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 EIGHTEENTH N.4TIONAL RADIO SCIENCE COSFERENCE
March 27-29 2001,Mansourn Univ., Egypt

2. Problem Formulation

Consider an array of L elements arranged over a sector of a sphere at locations Idefined by the spherical
coordinates ( p , p l ,8,) where p is the sphere radius. Let the direction of arrival of the signal froni a far zone
source be(@,, Q,,)..Define the angle tIpbetween the two vectors of the source p and the element I, where:

COS g,,, = COS 9, cos gI + sin 9, sin c:os(q, - vi) (2.1)

The received signal by the element 1 from the element p can be expressed as

or)

=spe
ikPWS4Ip
=sp 1in (2n+ 1)J" (kP)P,t (cos.Plp1
n=O
whcre:
Jn( a ) is the spherical Bessel function of the first kind of order n,
f',, (b) is the Legendre function of tlie first kind and order n,
k is the wave number, and i is the complex number.

Using the Legender function expansion [3]

Equation (2.2) can be rewritten as

a g n
2n + 1 ( n - m)!
~ i B & --J,(!:p)P~(cos9,)I),"
x,,, = S, s=O m=O ,,, (cos$/ )e-r"(vp-9''
2 (n+m)!
(2.4)
2n+1 ( n - m ) !
+x,z 2 i n . c ) " -- J,, (kp)P,,"(COS $,)P,f (cos )e""(+-")
n=O n=O 2 (n+m)!

where E,,, is the Neumann's number (I for i?t = 0 and 2 for ni > 0 ).

Assume that the summation over n is truncated into N , and the sum over m is extended to N such that the
summing terms for M > I? are equal zero. Hence, one may write Equation (2.4) as

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 where
yIan,= y C i n c n -
12 n + l (-
n-m)!
Jn(kp)P,"(cosS,)Pnn'(cosS~
),and
n=O 2 (n-tm)!
1; mln
'=o; m7n*

Let be a L x ( 2 N + 1) matrix with elements Iqk = q,,, for Ikl= m,

[q1]1,.2N+I, - R' 5 k S N . Hence,
Equation (2.7) may be rewritten as

(2.5)
where:

and[@I is a ( 2 N + 1) x ( 2 N + 1) ) diagonal matrix with elements e-"" .

- k' ..,yields a transfornied receivcd signal by a virtual array of maximum length
Multiplying both sides by [w,, N+,

equals 2N+1

(2.10)

It is worth noting that Ithis defined for a candidate 8,.Hence, the process is carried for the elevation angle
of the source over an interestingazimuth domain of 8 at intervals defined by the required resolution.
Equation (2. IO) can be rewritten for the received signal from a P number of sources as

(2.1 1)
where [s,],~ is a vector of length P containingthe intensity and the relative phase of the sources.

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 EIGHTEENTH N.-iTXONAL RADIO SC1ENC:E COSFERENCE 1-
March 27-29 2001,Munsoura L'niv., Egypt

At the end of transformation, one of the Eigen-decomposition based techniques of direction estimation is
applied; e.g. MUSIC [4]. A common assumption ofthese techniques is that the additive noise is spatially whitc
and uncorrelated with the received signal. As a result of signal trznsformation, the noise of the virtual array is not
spatially white. It can be found that the signal intensity increases toward the edges of the virtual array. For
alleviating this problem, the virtual array must be truncated around the center to a Icngth which depend on thc
noise intensity. It is clear that this step will reduce the resolution and the number of sources that can be
estimated.

3. Consideration in Numerical Computation

The success of the transformation process depends mainly on the expansion accuracy of the steering vector given
by Equation (2.2). Consider the problem of an array with element location given in Table 3.1.

Elementno. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 1 1 12 13 14 15 16 17
cp (Deg.1 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200 240 260 280 300 320 340
0 20 40 50 30 60 50 40 30 50 40 50 40 30 70 50 50 30

The mean square error between the exact steering vector and the expanded one for a source with an elevation
angle rp = 0 is given in Table 3.2 for different azimuth angle 8.Table 3.2 shows the effect of the number of
expansion terms N for a sphere radius p / 1 = 0.8 with different 8 . The error is relatively high at different 8
with a small number of expansion terms. It becomes better with I5 expansion ternis, and poorer with further
increasing N to 17. Obviously, nine expansion terms are not enough foraccurate (expansion, while there is a
round-off error arises in computing the spherical functions of high order with a relatively small sphere radius.
The effect ofthe radius length is further illustrated in Table 3.3 with N=17.It shows a negligible error in case of
p / A = 1.2 for different 9.It becomes higher with increasing p / h to 2. Otlviousiy, the success of the
expansion depends of the proper selection of the number of expansion terms and the used computation code of
the spherical functions.

Table 3.2

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 EIGHTEElYTH NATIONAL RADIO SCIENCE COSFERESCE
hlnrch 27-29 2001,M;~nsouraUniv., Egypt
1-

Theta plh= plh= plh= plh= pa=

0.8 1.o 1.2 1.5 2.0
1 0 1 0.29 0.0005 3c-6 I 0 1 ye-4 I
in 0.9. non18 3e-h 0 Ze-4
20 2.17 0.004 7e-6 0 5e-4
30 0.65 0.0013 2e-6 2e-4 2e-6

80
-.

90 1 0.46 I 0.001 I 2c-3 I 3e-2 I 0.32

4. Numerical Results

Consider a random array of 17 omni-directional elements conformed to a spherical surface of radius

p = 1.2A .Assume that the signals from two namow band sources (P = 2) are impinging the surface at
(p,,,$,); p = 1, 2.. The additive noise is assumed spatially white with total signal to noise ratio defined as
s / N .Let the signal of two equal power incoherent sources at (14" ,44") and (46" ,76") is impinging an
array with elements location is given in Table 3.1.

In FigsA.I-(a), 4. I-(b), the absolute value of the estimated spectrum is shown at s / N = 10 dB and 2SdB
using the MUSIC estimator. The results of both are attained in IO independent trials using 1024 snapshots with a
truncated length of the virtual a m y equals 7. It can be noted that the estimated directions are slightly biased at
lodB although the Figure shows two distinct signals. At S / N = 25dB ,the location of the two sources is
estimated accurately with zero bias.

In an attempt to increase the resolution and improve the bias at S / N = IO&, the length of the virtual array is
increased to 1 1 rather than 7. The spectrum in Fig.4.2 shows a single source located at (46" ,76") ,and no sign
of presence of the second one. Obviously, it is an effect of non-spatial white noise over the virtual array.

In the environment of coherent sources, the MUSIC estimator in conjunction with the Spatial Smoothing
technique [5-6]can be applied if the sources have the same azimuth angle. Consider the problem of two identical

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 EIGHTEENTH 3-ATIONAL RAD10 SCIESCE COSFIIRENCE
hlarcli 27-29 2001,Mansour:1 Univ., Egypt
ml
-

coherent sources located at (14”,44”) and (46”,44”). Figs.4 3 -(a), 4.3-(b) show the estimated spectra at
s / N = 25dB without smoothing and with smoothing, respectively.
Obviously, the estimator can’t resolve the received signal without applying ,the spatial moothing technique,
while two peaks at the exact locations of the sources are estimated as a result of smoothing. The problem of two
different azimuth angles requires exchanging the 9 and 9 coordinates of the array and repeating the
transformation process.

5. Conclusions

The success of the proposed transformationprocess is governed by the accuracy of the steering vector expansion.
The success of expansion depends on the proper selection of the number of expansion t.erms and the computation
code of the spherical functions. The number of virtual array elements must be selected according to the level of
the additive noise. The number of elements must be reduced at l o w s / N . ‘The process has to be doubly applied
in the coherent sources probiem with different azimuth angles.

6.References

[I] M. Wax, and J. Sheinnald, “Direction Finding of Coherent Signals Via Spatial Sirtoothing for Uniform
Circular array”, IEEE Trans. Anieiinas & Propagation, Vo1.42, no.5, pp. 613-619, May 1994.

[2] M. A. Doron, E. Doron and A. J. An!liony, “Coherent Wide Band Processing for .Arbitrary Array
Geometry ”, IEEE Trans. on Signal Processing, Vol. 4 I , no. 1, pp. 4 14-417,January 1993.

[3] R. F. Harrington, Time Harmonic Electromagnetic Fields, McGraw-I-lillCompany INC., I96 I .

[4] R.0. Schmidt, “Multiple Emitter Location and Signal Parameters Estimation”, IEEE Trans. Antennas Sr
Propagation, Vol. AP-34, pp. 276-280, March 1986.

[ 5 ] T. J. Shan, M. Wax, and T. Kailath, “On Spatial Smoothing for Direction-of-Arrival Estimation of
Coherent Signals”, IEEE Trans. Acoust., Speech, Signal Processing, Vol. ASSP-33, pp.806-8 I I , August
1985.

[6] S . U. Pillai, and B. H. Kwon, “Forward-Backward Spatial Smoothing Techniques for Coherent Signal
Identification”,IEEE Trans. Acoust., Speech, Signal Processing, Vol. ASSP-37, pp. S-15, January 19S9.

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 EIGHTEESTH S.ATIONAL RADIO SCIENCE COSFERESCE
hlnrch 27-29 2001,3l:insoor:i Univ., Egypt
1-

Fig. 4.2. . T l i c lirub CUI IO I:i~uic 1.r uriiiy a virtual w a y ul'lciiyll~I I

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 EIGIiTE EST11 S.ATION.4 L It4 D10 SCIESCE COS FER ESC E
3l:irch 17-29 2001.JI:insour:i Univ., Egypt [117(8j

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