Adaptive estimation of the polarization of a signal

• Published in: IEEE transactions on aerospace and electronic systems 1995-04, Vol.31 (2), p.845-852
• Main Authors: Raghavan, R.S., Pulsone, N., McLaughlin, D.J.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adaptive arrays; Adaptive estimation; Applied sciences; Clutter; Detection, estimation, filtering, equalization, prediction; Exact sciences and technology; Information, signal and communications theory; Interference; Polarization; Radar antennas; Receiving antennas; Signal and communications theory; Signal resolution; Signal synthesis; Signal, noise; Spatial resolution; Telecommunications and information theory
• ISSN: 0018-9251; 1557-9603
• DOI: 10.1109/7.381935

The polarized component of a partially polarized wave may be suppressed by synthesizing the receiving antenna polarization appropriately. We evaluate the performance of a polarimetric signal suppression (or enhancement) strategy in which the desired polarization of the receiving antenna is adaptively estimated using a finite number of secondary vectors. The probability density function of the Stokes vector estimated from a set of secondary vectors is obtained for the case where the wave components along two orthogonal polarizations of each secondary vector ore modeled as complex, zero-mean, jointly Gaussian random variables. The density function is used to obtain confidence limits for the estimated direction of the Stokes vector and some implications to the problem of adaptive signal suppression (or enhancement) are indicated.< >