Robust Spatial time-frequency distributions for DOA Estimation using Spatial Averaging and Directional Smoothing

Abstract A new method of computing robust spatial time-frequency distributions (STFDs) for signals received in a uniform linear array is presented. The proposed method adopts a two step procedure to improve the robustness of STFDs. In the first step, improved spatial averaging is performed to suppress cross-terms and noise. In the second step, the adaptive directional smoothing using signal dependent kernel is performed to further improve the robustness of STFDs. Experimental results indicate that the proposed STFD outperforms the conventional STFDs for direction of arrival estimation.