Single-pixel compressive direction of arrival estimation using programmable metasurface apertures

Radar systems for direction of arrival (DoA) estimation have been the subject of significant research with applications ranging from security to channel sounding and automotive radars. Conventional DoA retrieval techniques rely on a hardware intensive system array architecture as the receiving unit. As a serious competing enabling technology, the compressing sensing paradigm can be deployed. Here a single-pixel based coded aperture can substantially simplify the physical hardware layer for DoA estimation. A significant advantage of this technique is that the received data from the source is compressed into a single channel, circumventing the necessity to have array-based multiple channels to retrieve the DoA information. In this paper, we present a passive compressive sensing radar technique for DoA estimation using a single-frequency, dynamically reconfigurable wave-chaotic metasurface antenna as a receiver.