Ultrawideband Discharge Source DOA Estimation Method Using Multiple Baseline Wideband Time-Domain Interferometry with Hilbert Transform

The research interest of ultrawideband (UWB) discharge source location estimation has increased these years. In this paper, a direction of arrival (DOA) estimation method using multiple baseline wideband time-domain interferometry with Hilbert transform for UWB discharge source is proposed based on time-domain and frequency-domain characteristics of radiated RF electromagnetic pulses (EMPs) from discharge sources. Monte Carlo simulations are then carried out; the results indicate that, the proposed method provides a better performance in UWB discharge source DOA estimation than the traditional time-domain method, especially in low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) conditions. Moreover, the influences of antenna array configurations and incident angles of radiated EMPs on the estimation precision are also studied. It has been shown that, the accuracy of both elevation angle and azimuth angle estimation improves with the increase of the antenna element number and baseline length. As for the influence of incident angles, the estimation accuracy of elevation angle enhances when real elevation angle increases, while that of azimuth angle tends to be opposite. Meanwhile, the real azimuth angle has little effect on the DOA estimation. Finally, an experimental setup for discharge source DOA estimation is introduced and the experiment results are illustrated.