Performance analysis of velocity - pressure smoothing for direction-of-arrival estimation of coherent signals

In this paper, we consider the problem of direction-of-arrival (DOA) estimation of coherent signals by using a number of identically oriented acoustic vector-sensors, wherein source decorrelation can be achieved by velocity-pressure smoothing. We examine the effect of velocity-pressure smoothing on the performance of MUSIC-type methods in terms of the overall root mean-square errors (RMSE) of DOA estimates. The closed-form expression for the overall RMSE is derived and analyzed. We also compare velocity-pressure smoothing with the conventional spatial smoothing technique. Simulation results are given to confimi the analyses.