Multi-ULAs Dilated Nested Array: A Sparse Antenna Array Design With Enhanced DOA Estimation Performance

Lang Zhou; Gongjian Zhou

doi:10.1109/JIOT.2026.3703787

Multi-ULAs Dilated Nested Array: A Sparse Antenna Array Design With Enhanced DOA Estimation Performance

Lang Zhou
, Gongjian Zhou^*

^*Corresponding author for this work

School of Electronics and Information Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology
Ministry of Industry and Information Technology

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

Sparse antenna array (SAA) design involves two essential metrics: uniform degrees of freedom (uDOFs) and mutual coupling (MC). This letter proposes an SAA comprising six sparse uniform linear arrays (ULAs), named the multi-ULAs dilated nested array (MUDNA). Different from existing SAAs that assemble subarrays to fill co-array holes, MUDNA adopts a redundancy rearrangement strategy: it extracts interior sensors redundant for difference co-array (DCA) continuity from densely spaced subarrays and redeploys them at larger inter-element spacings (IES), simultaneously reducing MC and extending uDOFs. Numerical results confirm that, under strong MC, MUDNA outperforms competing SAAs in direction of arrival (DOA) estimation.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	32459-32462
Number of pages	4
Journal	IEEE Internet of Things Journal
Volume	13
Issue number	14
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1109/JIOT.2026.3703787
State	Published - 15 Jul 2026
Externally published	Yes

Keywords

Direction of arrival (DOA) estimation
multiuniform linear arrays dilated nested array (MUDNA)
mutual coupling (MC)
sparse antenna array (SAA)
uniform degrees of freedom (uDOFs)

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10.1109/JIOT.2026.3703787

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title = "Multi-ULAs Dilated Nested Array: A Sparse Antenna Array Design With Enhanced DOA Estimation Performance",

abstract = "Sparse antenna array (SAA) design involves two essential metrics: uniform degrees of freedom (uDOFs) and mutual coupling (MC). This letter proposes an SAA comprising six sparse uniform linear arrays (ULAs), named the multi-ULAs dilated nested array (MUDNA). Different from existing SAAs that assemble subarrays to fill co-array holes, MUDNA adopts a redundancy rearrangement strategy: it extracts interior sensors redundant for difference co-array (DCA) continuity from densely spaced subarrays and redeploys them at larger inter-element spacings (IES), simultaneously reducing MC and extending uDOFs. Numerical results confirm that, under strong MC, MUDNA outperforms competing SAAs in direction of arrival (DOA) estimation.",

keywords = "Direction of arrival (DOA) estimation, multiuniform linear arrays dilated nested array (MUDNA), mutual coupling (MC), sparse antenna array (SAA), uniform degrees of freedom (uDOFs)",

author = "Lang Zhou and Gongjian Zhou",

note = "Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2014 IEEE.",

year = "2026",

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day = "15",

doi = "10.1109/JIOT.2026.3703787",

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AU - Zhou, Lang

AU - Zhou, Gongjian

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Y1 - 2026/7/15

N2 - Sparse antenna array (SAA) design involves two essential metrics: uniform degrees of freedom (uDOFs) and mutual coupling (MC). This letter proposes an SAA comprising six sparse uniform linear arrays (ULAs), named the multi-ULAs dilated nested array (MUDNA). Different from existing SAAs that assemble subarrays to fill co-array holes, MUDNA adopts a redundancy rearrangement strategy: it extracts interior sensors redundant for difference co-array (DCA) continuity from densely spaced subarrays and redeploys them at larger inter-element spacings (IES), simultaneously reducing MC and extending uDOFs. Numerical results confirm that, under strong MC, MUDNA outperforms competing SAAs in direction of arrival (DOA) estimation.

AB - Sparse antenna array (SAA) design involves two essential metrics: uniform degrees of freedom (uDOFs) and mutual coupling (MC). This letter proposes an SAA comprising six sparse uniform linear arrays (ULAs), named the multi-ULAs dilated nested array (MUDNA). Different from existing SAAs that assemble subarrays to fill co-array holes, MUDNA adopts a redundancy rearrangement strategy: it extracts interior sensors redundant for difference co-array (DCA) continuity from densely spaced subarrays and redeploys them at larger inter-element spacings (IES), simultaneously reducing MC and extending uDOFs. Numerical results confirm that, under strong MC, MUDNA outperforms competing SAAs in direction of arrival (DOA) estimation.

KW - Direction of arrival (DOA) estimation

KW - multiuniform linear arrays dilated nested array (MUDNA)

KW - mutual coupling (MC)

KW - sparse antenna array (SAA)

KW - uniform degrees of freedom (uDOFs)

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Multi-ULAs Dilated Nested Array: A Sparse Antenna Array Design With Enhanced DOA Estimation Performance

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