Synthesis of Sparse Planar Antenna Arrays for Detection and Direction Finding

We study the capabilities of nonequidistant sparse planar antenna arrays to solve the problems of detection and estimation of the source parameters. For the synthesis of nonequidistant antenna arrays with the desired characteristics, the method proposed earlier for linear arrays based on random sampling of the element positions while fixing the mean inter-element spacing is applied. This method is shown to also successfully synthesize the planar sparse arrays. The detection characteristics for the synthesized arrays are only slightly worse than those for an equidistant array. This difference can be formulated in terms of a slight deterioration of the signal-to-noise ratio (by 1–2 dB). In this case, the frequency range increases many times. This work employs the earlier proposed probabilities of correct detection and estimation, as well as the probability of an abnormal error for a quantitative description of the capabilities of the planar sparse antenna array.