URGLQ: An Efficient Covariance Matrix Reconstruction Method for Robust Adaptive Beamforming

Abstract: The computational complexity of the conventional adaptive beamformer is relatively large, and the performance degrades significantly due to the model mismatch errors and the unwanted signals in received data. In this paper, an efficient unwanted signal removal and Gauss-Legendre quadrature (URGLQ)-based covariance matrix reconstruction method is proposed. Different from the prior covariance matrix reconstruction methods, a projection matrix is constructed to remove the unwanted signal from the received data, which improves the reconstruction accuracy of the covariance matrix. Considering that the computational complexity of most matrix reconstruction algorithms is relatively large due to the integral operation, we proposed a Gauss-Legendre quadrature-based method to approximate the integral operation while maintaining accuracy. Moreover, to improve the robustness of the beamformer, the mismatch in the desired steering vector is corrected by maximizing the output power of the beamformer under a constraint that the corrected steering vector cannot converge to any interference steering vector. Simulation results and prototype experiments demonstrate that the performance of the proposed beamformer outperforms the compared methods and is much closer to the optimal beamformer in different scenarios.