Rapid Phase Ambiguity Elimination Methods for DOA Estimator via Hybrid Massive MIMO Receive Array

For a sub-connected hybrid multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) receiver with K subarrays and N antennas, there exists a challenging problem of how to rapidly remove phase ambiguity in only single time-slot. A direction of arrival (DOA) estimator of maximizing received power (Max-RP) is proposed to find the maximum value of K-subarray output powers, where each subarray is in charge of one sector, and the center angle of the sector corresponding to the maximum output is the estimated true DOA. To make an enhancement on precision, Max-RP plus quadratic interpolation (Max-RP-QI) method is designed. In the proposed Max-RP-QI, a quadratic interpolation scheme is adopted to interpolate the three DOA values corresponding to the largest three receive powers of Max-RP. To achieve the Cramer Rao lower bound, a Root-MUSIC plus Max-RP-QI scheme is developed. Simulation results show that the proposed three methods eliminate the phase ambiguity during one time-slot and also show low computational complexities. The proposed Root-MUSIC plus Max-RP-QI scheme can reach the Cramer Rao lower bound, and the proposed Max-RP and Max-RP-QI are still some performance losses 2–4 dB compared to the Cramer Rao lower bound.