Steering Vector

A steering vector represents the set of phase delays a plane wave experiences, evaluated at a set of array elements (antennas). The phases are specified with respect to an arbitrary origin. For instance, suppose a plane wave is described by a wave vector k. If there are N elements in an antenna array, with element i having location given by: Then the steering vector is an Nx1 complex vector representing the relative phases at each antenna, and is given by: The steering vector is written as v(k), to make explicit that it depends on the frequency and propagation direction (which determine k) of the plane wave.