Performance bound analysis of a hybrid array

A hybrid array is a new type of spatial array paradigm incorporating multiple sensor error models. To investigate the implications of hybrid arrays, a detailed performance analysis of a particular hybrid array is carried out. This array is composed of both ideal and general phase degraded sensors. To simplify the discussion, the analysis is restricted to unconstrained sensor sufficient configurations. It is shown that this kind of array can have better angle-of-arrival (AOA) estimation accuracy than a classical subarray of the ideal sensors alone. Also, bounds on the performance of self-calibration of the phase degraded sensors are presented. The performance analysis is carried out making extensive use of both the symbolic and numeric Cramer-Rao lower bound (CRLB). The CRLB results are compared to Monte Carlo simulation.