Direct position determination using single moving rotating linear array: Noncoherent and coherent processing

To improve the resolution and accuracy of Direct Position Determination (DPD), this paper investigates the problem of positioning multiple emitters directly with a single moving Rotating Linear Array (RLA). Firstly, the geometry of the RLA is formulated and analysed. According to its geometry, the intercepted noncoherent signals in multiple interception intervals are modeled. Correspondingly, the MUltiple SIgnal Classification (MUSIC) based noncoherent DPD approach is proposed. Secondly, the synchronous coherent pulse signals are individually considered and formulated. And the coherent DPD approach which aims for localizing this special type of signal is presented by stacking all array responses at different interception intervals. Besides, we also derive the constrained Cramér-Rao Lower Bound (CRLB) expression for both noncoherent and coherent DPD with RLA under the constraint that the altitudes of the emitters are known. At last, computer simulations are included to examine the performance of the proposed approach. The results demonstrate that the localization accuracy and resolution of DPD with single moving linear array can be significantly improved by the array rotation. In addition, coherent DPD with RLA further improves the resolution and increases the maximum emitter number that can be localized compared with the noncoherent DPD with RLA.