Coupling compensation of the antenna array response for direction-finding applications

In this research work, the improvement of angle of arrival (AoA) estimation accuracy by applying a decoupling matrix derived using the receiving mode approach has been investigated using data measured in an anechoic chamber. The receiver was a 4-element uniform circular array with quarter-wavelength inter-element spacing deployed on a square metal plate. The performance of the angle of arrival estimation error has been observed for two groups of direction finding algorithms, namely phase comparison-based (interferometry) and covariance-based algorithms. Mutual coupling compensation on AOA was found to improve accuracy by approximately 50%.