A genetic algorithm based direction finding technique with compensation of mutual coupling effects

In this paper, genetic algorithms are applied to the direction finding of adaptive antenna arrays in the presence of mutual coupling. The received signals are compensated to eliminate the distortion due to mutual coupling effects. The compensation in this study is based on the concepts of moment methods without modifying the direction finding algorithm itself. After the received signals are compensated, the direction-of-arrival (DOA) of incident signals can be estimated by computing the power spectrum over the whole range of observation angles. Numerical examples show that this direction finding technique is accurate and with high resolution even in the presence of mutual coupling. With the use of genetic algorithms, the analyses in this paper do not require a suitable guess of an initial solution and there exist no gradient operations in the iteration procedures. Nearly global optimum solutions are obtained since genetic algorithms are inherent stochastic optimization processes.