Selection of Antenna Array Configuration for Polarimetric Direction Finding in Correlated Signal Environments

Antenna arrays with dual-polarised elements can improve the angles-of-arrival (AoA) estimation. Dual-polarised antenna elements increase the overall number of antenna ports by a factor of 2. In case of less receiver ports than number of antenna ports, a certain antenna configuration (sub-array) has to be chosen. We investigate the influence of different antenna configurations on the AoA estimation accuracy. No certain signal polarisation is assumed, why polarisation is treated as an additional parameter in direction finding. Therefore, we additionally investigate the polarimetric antenna characteristics dependent on the angles-of-arrival. An environment with correlated signals is assumed, what occurs in multipath propagation. Simulations based on the Cramer-Rao-Bound and real world measurements are utilised for our investigations.