Direction-of-arrival estimation for extensible acoustic vector sensor array

Aiming at high-resolution estimation of the direction-of-arrival of closely-spaced sources at low signal-to-noise ratio regions, this paper proposes a DOA estimation algorithm that is suitable for an extensible acoustic vector sensor array. Taking the 3D array composed of the minimum number(four) of acoustic vector sensors as the acquisition module, a virtual array having the same structure as the original array structure is extended in the three-dimensional space based on the aperture expansion characteristic of higher-order cumulants. The virtual array and the real array can construct a matrix with rotational invariance, which contains the angular information for estimating DOA. The Cramer-Rao bound of the algorithm are derived. We analyze the influence of SNR, the number of snapshots and the elevation angle on the performance of the algorithm. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm has better noise suppression ability and higher resolution in DOA estimation than the conventional ESPRIT algorithm using the acoustic vector array. Experiments are conducted to validate the proposed algorithm.