Coprime Distributed Array for Super-Resolution DOA Estimation

The increasing complexity of the electromagnetic environment, driven by rapid advancements in communication and radar technologies, places greater demands on direction of arrival (DOA) estimation. While traditional antenna arrays improve performance by increasing the number of elements, this approach raises hardware costs and design complexity with reducing system flexibility. Distributed arrays offer a promising alternative by enhancing angular accuracy and resolution without additional elements. However, conventional uniformly distributed radars suffer from high hardware costs and computational complexity. To overcome this issue, this paper proposes a distributed radar architecture based on a coprime arrangement. By deploying two subarrays with coprime spacings, the proposed structure significantly reduces hardware requirements while maintaining high angle estimation accuracy. Simulations validate the effectiveness of the proposed configuration. Under the conditions of a signal-to-noise ratio of 0 dB and 50 snapshots, the angle measurement error reached (10−3)°.