PERFORMANCE OF DF TECHNIQUES WITH A VHF ANTENNA-ARRAY

A description of practical data processing techniques that have been u sed for direction finding (DF) with a real array is presented. The mea sured data were collected using a DF trial ''test bed,'' which was dev eloped at the Defence Research Establishment Ottawa (DREO) and is base d on digital beamforming (DBF) technology. The system transmitters are used to simulate a complex signal environment and can be operated in a continuum of frequencies in the VHF band. In the paper, we present 1 ) a signal model, 2) multipath analysis, 3) array error calibration, 4 ) spatio-temporal estimation using multiple snapshots, 5) multiple sna pshot forward backward two-step prediction DF, and 6) performance eval uation of DF algorithms. The DF results for a wideband radio source ar e also included.