Direction-of-arrival estimation algorithm in automotive distributed non-coherent multi-radar systems

The present paper is focused on processing of signals from multiple sensors in non-coherent mode that provide improvement of angular resolution of close targets compared to single radar. The low-complexity technique of Direction-of-Arrival (DoA) estimation in Automotive Distributed Non-Coherent Multi-Radar Systems in the case of short length of snapshots is proposed. This technique consists of three main stages: beam-scanning procedure, transformation of the received signals of two radars to the unified coordinate system, and joint DoA estimation algorithm. The DoA method is represented by two approaches: (i) the Capon method modified for joint signal processing; (ii) low-complexity algorithm based on theory of auto-compensator. Performance of the system is investigated on the base of Monte-Carlo simulation. Current algorithm shows improvement of system performance of distributed non-coherent multi-radar systems compared to single radar.