1636 IEEE COMMUNICATIONS LETTERS, VOL. 19, NO. 9, SEPTEMBER 2015
Robust Adaptive Beamforming Based on Steering Vector Estimation
and Covariance Matrix Reconstruction
Feng Shen, Fengfeng Chen, and Jinyang Song
Abstract—In this letter, a novel robust adaptive beamforming
(RAB) technique is proposed. It offers robust performance even
with large look direction error in the array steering vector (ASV)
and an uncertainty in the covariance matrix. In essence, the
proposed ASV estimation technique treats the ASV as a vector
lying within the intersection of two subspaces, and then estimates
it using a closed-form formula. In this technique, the covariance
matrix is reconstructed after the desired signal (DS) eigenvalue
is replaced by the average value of the noise eigenvalues, thus
eliminating a large portion of the DS. Furthermore, the only prior
information necessary is knowledge of the antenna array geometry
and angular sector in which the actual ASV lies. Simulation results
indicate that the proposed method achieves good performance
in terms of output signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR),
as long as the input signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) is not close to
the interference-to-noise ratio (INR) and the DS and interference
signals are well separated.
Index Terms—Robust adaptive beamforming (RAB), array
steering vector (ASV) estimation, closed-form formula, covariance
matrix reconstruction, large look direction error.
I. INTRODUCTION
A
DAPTIVE arrays are widely used in radar, sonar, wireless
communication and medical imaging. They have high
performance in interference cancellation and noise reduction,
provided that array steering vector (ASV) uncertainty of the
desired signal (DS) is accounted for and provided that an
accurate array covariance matrix estimate is available. Adaptive
arrays are very sensitive to the ASV mismatches, which will
result in serious DS cancellation problem. The presence of the
DS component in the training snapshots is also a major cause
of performance degradation in adaptive beamforming.
Many approaches such as the robust Capon beamformer
(RCB) [1], the eigenspace-based beamformer (ESB) [2], and
beamformers based on ASV estimation [3]–[6] have been
proposed to enhance robustness against ASV errors. In ad-
dition, the beamforming methods in [3]–[6] have high com-
plexity owing to the use of specific optimization software.
The interference-plus-noise (IPN) covariance matrix can be
obtained in [7], but it will be ineffective in presence of ASV
errors especially at the high input signal-to-noise ratio (SNR).
The beamformer of [6] achieves good performance in the
case of DS error due to the required IPN covariance ma-
trix reconstruction process and the optimization software. Re-
Manuscript received January 22, 2015; revised June 3, 2015; accepted
July 4, 2015. Date of publication July 13, 2015; date of current version
September 4, 2015. This work was supported by National Natural Science
Foundation of China (Grants 61102107 and 61374208) and by the Fundamental
Research Funds for the Central Universities (HEUCFX41310). The associate
editor coordinating the review of this paper and approving it for publication
was A. Ikhlef.
The authors are with College of Automation, Harbin Engineering Uni-
versity, Harbin 150001, China (e-mail: sf407@126.com; cyf1935@163.com;
cyf1935@126.com).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/LCOMM.2015.2455503
cently, a low-complexity robust adaptive beamforming (RAB)
technique which estimates the ASV using a Low-Complexity
Shrinkage-Based Mismatch Estimation (LOSCME) algorithm
was presented in [8]. This beamforming method offers excellent
performance when the interfering sources are weak.
In this letter, a novel RAB technique is proposed. This
method is an improved version of the beamformer presented in
[7], while also being robust against large look direction error.
Firstly, two subspaces are formed where the ASV is assumed
to be a vector lying in the intersection of these subspaces and
the ASV can be easily estimated using a closed-form formula.
Then, the covariance matrix is reconstructed after the DS eigen-
value is replaced by the average value of the noise eigenvalues,
thereby eliminating a noticeable portion of the DS. Importantly,
the only prior information required is the knowledge of the
antenna array geometry and the angular sector in which the
actual ASV lies. Furthermore, the proposed technique does
not require any optimization programs which is benefit by the
ASV estimation can be in a closed-form formula. Crucially, the
technique can offer good performance provided that the SNR
is not close to the interference-to-noise ratio (INR) and the DS
and interference signals can be well separated.
II. S
YSTEM MODEL
Let us consider a uniform linear array (ULA) with N sensors
impinged by M + 1 narrowband uncorrelated signals (one DS
and M interferences). The signal received at the time instant k
can be written as
x(k) = s(k) + i(k) + n(k) (1)
where s(k), i(k),andn(k) denotes the N ×1 vectors of the DS,
interference, and noise, respectively. The adaptive beamformer
output is given by y(k) = w
H
x(k),wherew =[ω
1
,...,ω
N
]
T
is the complex weighting vector, and (·)
H
and (·)
T
denote the
Hermitian transpose and transpose, respectively. The Capon
beamformer can be written as
min
w
w
H
R
in
w subject to w
H
a(θ
p
) = 1(2)
where R
in
= E{(i(k) + n(k))(i(k) + n(k))
H
} is the IPN covari-
ance matrix, a(θ
p
) ∈ C
N×1
is the presumed ASV of the DS,
where θ
p
is the presumed direction-of-arrival (DOA), and E{·}
is the expectation. The solution is the Capon beamformer,
w =
R
−1
in
a(θ
p
)
a(θ
p
)
H
R
−1
in
a(θ
p
)
(3)
which is a function of two factors R
in
and a(θ
p
).
The SINR is given by SINR = (σ
2
|w
H
a(θ
p
)|
2
)/(w
H
R
−1
in
w),
where σ
2
is the power of the DS. However, the IPN covariance
matrix R
in
is usually unavailable in practical applications and
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