A new nested array for direction-of-arrival estimation

In this paper, the problem of direction-of-arrival (DOA) estimation with a new nested array is addressed. It is known that the original two-level nested array is composed of two uniform linear arrays (ULAs), and there exist some redundant elements in their difference co-array. In order to reduce the redundancy, a new array configuration which consists of a ULA and a non-uniform linear array, rather than two ULAs, is proposed. On one hand, the proposed array can effectively increase degrees of freedom as well as virtual array aperture. On the other hand, it has a group of continuous lags in the virtual array. Thanks to the advantages of the proposed array configuration, higher resolution and better estimation performance of DOA estimation can be achieved. Simulation results show the superiority of the proposed array structure.