Generative Large-Array Emulation for DOA Estimation in MIMO Radar via Conditional Diffusion

Abstract

Accurate direction-of-arrival (DOA) estimation from a small multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) radar array is limited by its aperture, while adding antennas increases hardware cost. Snapshot-based array emulation reconstructs large-array observations before applying multiple signal classification (MUSIC), but reconstruction errors can distort the spectral peaks used for DOA estimation. We instead generate an idealized large-array MUSIC spectrum directly from small-array measurements. Coarray compression combines redundant virtual channels, and the resulting covariance and MUSIC spectrum condition a diffusion model. Consensus over peaks in multiple generated spectra yields the DOA estimates. Simulations with fluctuating targets show that the method outperforms a scene-matched snapshot-reconstruction network and an otherwise matched deterministic spectrum predictor. Small- and large-array MUSIC and their Cramér-Rao bounds provide reference comparisons. The method improves angle estimation using only the small array at inference.