Low complexity performance assessment of a sensor array via unscented transformation

Due to the advances on electronics, applications of antenna array signal processing are becoming more frequent. When employing antenna arrays for beamforming, the signal to interference and noise ratio (SINR) should be assessed. Many factors can affect the SINR such as the array element positioning error and the direction of arrival (DOA) estimation error. In these cases, the assessment is traditionally performed via the SINR average obtained using Monte Carlo (MC) simulations. However, this approach requires a great amount of realizations that demand a high computational effort and processing time due to its slow convergence. In this paper, we propose a low complexity performance assessment of the average SINR via unscented transformation. Compared to MC simulations, our proposed method requires only a few trials and has a negligible computational complexity, yet giving a comparable SINR when the DOA estimation is perturbed. When the antenna elements positioning is perturbed, a multivariate scenario arises. For multivariate scenario the proposed scheme has an exponential increase in complexity, therefore, still being advantageous for a small number of antennas.