A Method to Obtain the Spatial Distribution of Incoherently Distributed Sources

Most DOA estimation algorithms of distributed sources only estimate central angle of the arriving signal and its distribution parameters. These methods can not obtain the real distribution curve, and may require a two-dimensional search which costs a large amount of computation. In this paper, a method to obtain distribution curves is proposed on the assumption that the distribution curves are bell-shaped and symmetrical. Furthermore, the sparse signal reconstruction is introduced as mathematical tools, and it works well in the condition of sufficient number of array elements and can still obtain an approximate solution with insufficient array elements. In addition, its performance to estimate the central angle of arriving signal is not worse than the existing algorithm. Without requirement for a two-dimensional search, this method has lower computational complexity. Simulations verify the above conclusions.