Decentralized high-resolution direction finding in partly calibrated arrays

The problem of high-resolution direction finding is considered using a distributed array network with array position errors, called partly calibrated array. These errors are common in practice, and significantly affect high angular resolution. Existing calibration methods rely on centralized data transmission, which requires all the measurements to be transmitted to a computation center. This centralized mode leads to communication bottlenecks and system inflexibility. Here, a decentralized mode is designed, where each sensor only communicates locally with their neighboring sensors. Based on this mode, a corresponding direction-finding approach is proposed using sequential methods that process data one by one, which corresponds to the decentralized signal processing sensor by sensor. Simulations verify that the proposed method achieves decentralization with minor cost in estimation accuracy.