DOA Estimation Based on Circular-Attention Residual Network

Direction of arrival (DOA) estimation is a fundamental problem in array signal processing, with extensive applications in radar, communications, sonar, and other fields. Traditional DOA estimation methods, such as MUSIC and ESPRIT, rely on eigenvalue decomposition or spectral peak search, which suffer from high computational complexity and performance degradation under conditions of low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), coherent signals, and array imperfections. Cylindrical arrays offer unique advantages for omnidirectional sensing due to their circular structure and three-dimensional coverage capability; however, their nonlinear array manifold increases the difficulty of estimation. This paper proposes a circular-attention residual network (CA-ResNet) for DOA estimation using uniform cylindrical arrays. The proposed approach achieves high accuracy and robust angle estimation through phase difference feature extraction, a multi-scale residual network, an attention mechanism, and a joint output module. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed CA-ResNet method delivers superior performance under challenging scenarios, including low SNR (−10 dB), a small number of snapshots (L = 5), and multiple sources (1 to 4 signal sources). The corresponding root mean square errors (RMSE) are 0.21°, 0.45°, and below 1.5°, respectively, significantly outperforming traditional methods like MUSIC and ESPRIT, as well as existing deep learning models (e.g., ResNet, CNN, MLP). Furthermore, the algorithm exhibits low computational complexity and a small parameter size, highlighting its strong potential for practical engineering applications and robustness.