Direction finding with imperfect wavefront coherence: a matrix fitting approach using genetic algorithm

The performance of high-resolution direction finding methods degrades in several practical situations where the wavefronts have imperfect spatial coherence. The original solution to this problem was proposed by Paulraj and Kailath (1988), but their technique requires a priori knowledge of the matrix characterizing the loss of wavefront coherence along the array aperture. A novel solution to this problem is proposed, which does not require a priori knowledge of the spatial coherence matrix. Our technique is based on the multidimensional minimization of the appropriate concentrated cost function using the genetic algorithm (GA).