A robust spatial filtering method for DOA estimation of coherent sources in impulsive interference

Multipath propagation is one of the dominant environmental influences on the performance of wireless communication systems. Meanwhile, heavy-tailed interference from neighboring cells may further degrade communication quality in mobile systems. This paper employs notions of spatial diversity using an array of sensors to address the inter-signal coherence problem. At the same time, the paper proposes the use of fractional low-order moments to mitigate the effects of the heavy-tailed background noise environment. The improved performance achieved by the combination of these two processing modules is demonstrated via Monte Carlo simulations.