SPICE-ML Algorithm for Direction-of-Arrival Estimation

Sparse iterative covariance-based estimation, an iterative direction-of-arrival approach based on covariance fitting criterion, can simultaneously estimate the angle and power of incident signal. However, the signal power estimated by sparse iterative covariance-based estimation approach is inaccurate, and the estimation performance is limited to direction grid. To solve the problem above, an algorithm combing the sparse iterative covariance-based estimation approach and maximum likelihood estimation is proposed. The signal power estimated by sparse iterative covariance-based estimation approach is corrected by a new iterative process based on the asymptotically minimum variance criterion. In addition, a refinement procedure is derived by minimizing a maximum likelihood function to overcome the estimation accuracy limitation imposed by direction grid. Simulation results verify the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm. Compared with sparse iterative covariance-based estimation approach, the proposed algorithm can achieve more accurate signal power and improved estimation performance.