Reactance-domain MUSIC for ESPAR antennas (experiment)

The electronically steerable parasitic array radiator (ESPAR) antenna offers low cost and low complexity relative to conventional array antennas. Because of the low complexity of the antenna there is only a single-port output for processing the signals impinging on the antenna elements. Since a reactance-domain MUSIC algorithm for ESPAR antennas has been proposed, the practical problem of estimating the direction of arrival of signals impinging toward an ESPAR antenna can be tackled. In this paper, two experimental methods of estimating the arrival signal angles are proposed. A method of solving the practical problem of calibrating the ESPAR antenna output signal model is also shown. The experimental results show that for one impinging signal the direction of arrival can be estimated with precision of 3 degrees.