While the coprime array still suffers from performance degradation due to the mutual coupling dominated by the interleaved subarrays, we propose an array switching strategy for coprime linear array (CLA) by utilizing the large inter-element spacings of the subarrays to mitigate the mutual coupling. Specifically, we first collect the signals by separately activating the two subarrays, where the severe mutual coupling effect is significantly reduced. As a result, well-performed initial direction of arrival (DOA) estimates can be achieved. Subsequently, we establish a quadratic optimization problem by reconstructing the contaminated steering vector of the total CLA elaborately to calculate the mutual coupling coefficients with the initial DOA estimates. Finally, we can obtain refined DOA estimates by an iteration procedure based on the estimated mutual coupling matrix. In addition, numerical simulations are provided to demonstrate the merits of the proposed scheme.
Keywords: array switching; coprime array; direction of arrival; mutual coupling.