L.I. Ponomarev - D.Sc. (Eng.), Professor of Department of Radiophysics, Antennas and Microwave Technique of Moscow Aviation Institute. E-mail: mai4062@mail.ru
A.A. Vasin - C.Sc. (Eng.), Senior Teacher of Department of Radiophysics, Antennas and Microwave Technique of Moscow Aviation Institute. E-mail: notna_nisav@mail.ru

Direction finding technique of multipath signals with digital antenna arrays is presented in this article. Presented direction finding algorithm is based on the using of the eigenvector corresponding to the largest eigenvalue of the correlation matrix of the antenna array input data. Proposed directions of arrival and amplitudes determination algorithms can be used for arbitrary correlation of the impinging waves. The special case of direction finding of fully correlated (coherent) signals has been considered detailed. It was shown that the described direction finding algorithm allows determination of directions of arrival, amplitudes and number of signals with high accuracy in the gaussian white noise environment. Angle parameters determination accuracy by digital antenna arrays with specified configuration and size depends on the correlation score of the multipath signals, signal-to-noise ratio, selected scanning pitch and angle area sector, as well as accuracy of definition of the directional pattern of each element of the antenna array. If one doesn-t take into account interaction effects of antenna array elements, it can result in significant increase of root-mean-square errors of angle coordinates estimates.