DoA Estimation Using Neural Tangent Kernel under Electromagnetic Mutual Coupling

Antenna element mutual coupling degrades the performance of Direction of Arrival (DoA) estimation significantly. In this paper, a novel machine learning-based method via Neural Tangent Kernel (NTK) is employed to address the DoA estimation problem under the effect of electromagnetic mutual coupling. NTK originates from Deep Neural Network (DNN) considerations, based on the limiting case of an infinite number of neurons in each layer, which ultimately leads to very efficient estimators. With the help of the Polynomial Root Finding (PRF) technique, an advanced method, NTK-PRF, is proposed. The method adapts well to multiple-signal scenarios when sources are far apart. Numerical simulations are carried out to demonstrate that this NTK-PRF approach can handle, accurately and very efficiently, multiple-signal DoA estimation problems with realistic mutual coupling.