Direction of arrival (DOA) is important in many sensor

systems such as radar, sonar, electronic surveillance,

seismic exploration, and personal communication.
Most of high resolution direction of arrival methods are
depend on the eigenvalues and eigenvectors of the
received signal.
So the principal components analysis (PCA) neural
network is used to extract the eigenvalues and
eigenvectors.
The PCA neural network has an advantage over the QR,
and power methods in that, its extract the eigenvalues
and eigenvectors directly from the received signal
without the need to compute the covariance matrix like
the QR and power methods.
The Objective of this work is to use the signal
subspace techniques to estimate DOA of the received
signal with the help of the PCA neural network.

The signal subspace techniques are algorithms for

estimation the direction of arrival. Which is a type
of a parametric method for DOA estimation. Where
the parametric method are classified as shown in
next figure
 Parametric
Method

Spectral Parametric
Based Based

Beamforme Subspace DML SML

r Technique Based

Conventiona Capon MUSI ESPRIT

l C
The conventional beamformer is a natural extension of classical Fourier
based spectral analysis to sensor data. Its power spectrum is
PBF =aH(θ)Ŕa(θ)/ (aH(θ)a(θ))
Where a(θ) is the steering matrix, and Ŕ is the covariance matrix

Its attempt to resolving the power of two sources spaced

closer than beamwidth. Its power spectrum is
PCAP=1/(aH(θ)R-1a(θ))

It’s the first method that dedicated to DOA estimation, which

is depend on the noise subspace. Its power spectrum is
PM=aH(θ)a(θ)/(aH(θ)∏ a(θ)
Where ∏ =UnUnH, Un is the noisy eigenvectors.
Its required an extensive amounts of formulation and matrix
manipulation, thus the block diagram below illustrate it.

^ H
Data Matrix
U ^

^ H U1

= UΛ
^ ^ U s
X ^

Eigendecomposition ∧ H
U s
N
U n
U
^

L
Computes
ψ
)LS, or, TLS( ψ =T φ T −1

^
^
U 2 =U 1ψ
^
θ = cos )arg)φ ( / π(
m
−1
m
If we take the signal covariance matrix RS instead of all the covariance matrix R
(i.e., ignoring the noisy covariance matrix Rn ) of the Capon method then its
power spectrum will be
PMCAP=1/(aH(θ)RS-1a(θ))
Figures below shows the resolution of these algorithms for
θ1=80º, θ2=82º, and a ULA of ten sensors

.DOA (deg) for the Capon method .DOA (deg) for the MUSIC method .DOA (deg) for the MCapon method

And for the ESPRIT algorithm is θ1=79.475º , θ2= 82.636º.

From above figures it can be seen that the MCapon method give
higher resolutions than the other methods.
The above algorithms need the number of the received signals. Thus many
methods are used for estimation the number of signals such as the AIC, MDL,
and their modification OSAIC, and OSMDL.

The PCA NN is used with unsupervised algorithms such as:

1. Symmetric Subspace Algorithm
2. Generalized Hebbian algorithm (GHA)
3. Adaptive Principal Components Extraction Algorithm (APEX)
4. Cascade Recursive Least Square Algorithm (CRLS)
The proposed model for DOA estimation is shown in figure below

ULA or UCA

PCA

Estimation of the
number of the
received signals

DOA
Estimation

Output angle
Where the first block represents the geometry of sensors, which is either a
uniform linear array or a uniform circular array as shown in figure below

. . . x
0 d 2d L-1)d)
.Uniform linear array geometry
z

Ith plane wave

L/2 x
θ
R

.Uniform circular array geometry

The second block represents the PCA neural network with complex algorithms to
extract the principal components of the impeding signals on the ULA or UCA, that
in turn are used by the third block for estimating the number of sources.
The fourth block represents the subspace algorithms for DOA estimation.
 A single source of energy that illuminating a UCA of eight
sensors will be presents. The source with elevation angle θ=30º,
azimuth angle Ф=50º, fm/fS=.1, and SNR=10 db.

When training the PCA neural network with the GHA, APEX, CRLS
algorithms and with an adaptive learning rate then after the
synaptic weights reach their steady state as shown in figures below,
and after satisfying the orthogonality condition that is

W1W1H=1 for GHA algorithm

W1W1H=1 for APEX algorithm

W1W1H=1 for CRLS algorithm

Change of the synaptic weights versus the number Change of the synaptic weights versus the number of
of iterations for the complex GHA with adaptive iterations for the complex APEX with learning
learning rate, j=1, 2, . . ., 8. rate=.01, j=1, 2, . . . ,8.
Change of the synaptic weights versus the number of iterations for
the complex CRLS with learning rate=.01, j=1, 2, . . . ,8.
Then y j → λ j , and Wj → q j for j=1, 2, …,8, where yj, Wj is the output and the
synaptic weights of the PCA neural network, and λj, and qj is the eigenvalues and
eigenvectors.
From the eigenvalues, and eigenvectors of GHA, APEX, and CRLS it
can be seen that
λ
× 100 = 92.53 % For GHA algorithm
8
1

∑λ i =1
i

λ
× 100 = 85.76 % For APEX algorithm
8
1

∑λ i =1
i

λ
8
1
× 100 = 98.03 % For CRLS algorithm
∑λ i =1
i

Hence the first eigenvalue and its eigenvectors represents the principal
components. In the other hand there is only one source.
Also from the eigenvalues and eigenvectors of these algorithms it
can be seen that
( R − y y w w ) / R × 100% = 42%
s 1
*
1
For GHA algorithm
1
H
1 s

(R s
− y y w w ) / R × 100% = 50.11% For APEX algorithm
1
*
1 1
H
1 s

(R s
− y y w w ) / R × 100% = 10.45% For CRLS algorithm
1
*
1 1
H
1 s
from above it can be seen that the GHA, and APEX give high reconstruction error,
while the CRLS give acceptable reconstruction error. This is because the synaptic
weights tend to deconverge the calculation of the principal components of small
eigenvalues.
Now RS can be computed
RS=y1y1W1WH1
Then applied RS to MCapon method as shown in figures below

DOA using the principal DOA using the principal DOA using the principal
component of the complex GHA component of the complex APEX component of the complex CRLS
algorithm. algorithm. algorithm.
It is easy to see the effect of the noise on the DOA of both the GHA, and APEX
algorithms due to the high reconstruction error, while the CRLS gives a correct
DOA.

The power full of the CRLS algorithm is that the extraction of the
principal components is carried out from the error vector, i.e., not
directly from the input vector as in the GHA and APEX algorithm.
 From the studied cases, and the simulation results presented in
this work, the following conclusions can be pointed as follows:

1. A modification to the Capon method has been presented, which

give higher resolution.

2. The numbers of sources are computed directly from the output

of the PCA neural network instead of using the Maximum
Description Length (MDL), Akaike's information criteria (AIC),
order statistic maximum description length (OSMDL), or
order statistic Akaike's information criteria (OSAIC ) algorithms.

3. An on-line unsupervised learning algorithm for extracting of

complex valued principal components such as complex
generalized Hebbian algorithm, complex adaptive principal
extraction, complex cascade recursive least square have been
derived.
4. The principal components are computed directly from the input
signals instead of computing it from the covariance matrix.

5. This work can be especially useful for nonstationary signals, i.e. in the case of
the updating of the eigenvectors is slow for the new arriving samples.

6. The maximum number of signals that can be estimated is

less or equal to the number of sensors. That is, the DOA can
not be estimated if the number of signals is greater than the
number of sensors.
Hardware implementation for the PCA neural network using filed
programmable gate array (FPGA), which gives a fast multiplication,
leading to fast updating of the neural network.

Using a technique to estimate the DOA, frequency, and velocity.

Such as the maximum likelihood method.

Using the nonparametric method that depends on the fast Fourier

transform, and the wavelet transform for the estimation of the DOA.