Low Cost Array Design and Exploitation for DoA in Multipath Propagation Environment

When designing locators for direction-finding (DF) applications, the antenna array configuration plays a crucial role in determining both the accuracy and the speed of the system. The design can be evaluated relying on traditional antenna parameters as well as on system-level performance metrics, such as Mean Absolute Error (MAE), to ensure optimal performance in practical scenarios like indoor environments. This paper examines the trade-offs in antenna array design and direction-of-arrival (DoA) estimation performance, considering the impacts of gain, mutual coupling, grating lobes, noise, and multipath propagation environment.