Direction of arrival tracking below the ambiguity threshold

We present an algorithm for direction-of-arrival (DOA) tracking that allows operation below the ambiguity threshold of the direction-finding (DF) system. Using multiple target tracking techniques, the algorithm turns the most likely DOAs of each measurement into multiple potential tracks and then selects the true track as that with the maximum cumulative likelihood. The improvement offered by the algorithm, namely the extension of the ambiguity-free signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) domain, is demonstrated in several simulated experiments using several array structures, including a sparse array and a uniform linear array.