Estimation of distributed elevation and azimuth angles using linear arrays

Many results on the estimation of direction of arrival (DOA) have been obtained based on the assumption that the signal sources are point sources. Recently, it has been shown that signal source localization can be accomplished more adequately with distributed source models. In this paper, we consider modeling of S-dimensional distributed signal sources, in which a distributed source is represented by the center angles and degrees of dispersion. We address estimation of the elevation and azimuth angles of distributed sources based on the proposed distributed source modeling in the 3-dimensional space. Some examples are also included to more explicitly show the estimation procedures under the model: computer simulation results obtained by MUSIC-based methods with two uniform linear arrays are discussed.