On the use of particle swarm optimization for single snapshot DOA and frequency estimation

Direction Of Arrival (DOA) estimation is a well known problem that has been studied through a wide range of different approaches and methods. Most of these methods make use of several snapshots in the array to provide an accurate result but their performance is commonly degraded when only a single snapshot is available. In a scenario where not only the DOAs are unknown but also the frequencies of the signals need to be estimated with a single snapshot is where heuristics show their potential. This communication presents the use of Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) to estimate the DOA and the frequency of the incoming signals with a single snapshot. This enhanced methodology, applicable to both uniform and non-uniform arrays, can handle incoming signals with different complex amplitudes. Numerical results that show the validity of the approach are provided.