Twenty-Five Years of Sensor Array and Multichannel Signal Processing: A review of progress to date and potential research directions

In this article, a general introduction to the area of sensor array and multichannel signal processing is provided, including associated activities of the IEEE Signal Processing Society (SPS) Sensor Array and Multichannel (SAM) Technical Committee (TC). The main technological advances in five SAM subareas made in the past 25 years are then presented in detail, including beamforming, direction-of-arrival (DOA) estimation, sensor location optimization, target/source localization based on sensor arrays, and multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) arrays. Six recent developments are also provided at the end to indicate possible promising directions for future SAM research, which are graph signal processing (GSP) for sensor networks; tensor-based array signal processing, quaternion-valued array signal processing, 1-bit and noncoherent sensor array signal processing, machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) for sensor arrays; and array signal processing for next-generation communication systems.

Automated summary

This article provides a general introduction and overview of the sensor array and multichannel signal processing field, as well as the activities of the IEEE Signal Processing Society Sensor Array and Multichannel Technical Committee. It presents the main technological advances in five subareas over the past 25 years, including beamforming, DOA estimation, sensor location optimization, target/source localization based on sensor arrays, and MIMO arrays. It also discusses six recent developments and potential future research directions in SAM, such as graph signal processing for sensor networks and machine learning for sensor arrays.