Patent ID: 7196656

Claim:
An apparatus for estimating direction of arrival of a signal comprising: an array sensor having first and second sensor elements located at outermost ends and one or more third sensor elements located inward thereof; switch means for selecting either one of the first and second sensor elements for transmission and one of the first, second, and third sensor, elements for reception; switch control means for causing the switch means to select the first sensor element for transmission in a first period and to select at least the second and third sensor elements for reception in time division fashion, and for causing the switch means to select the second sensor element for transmission in a second period and to select at least the first and third sensor elements for reception in time division fashion, wherein the first and second periods are two periods alternating one after the other in cyclic fashion; and direction-of-arrival estimating means for estimating the direction of arrival of the signal from a received signal obtained at the sensor element selected for reception.