  We present a general problem formulation for optimal parameter estimation
based on quantized observations, with application to antenna array
communication and processing (channel estimation, time-of-arrival (TOA) and
direction-of-arrival (DOA) estimation). The work is of interest in the case
when low resolution A/D-converters (ADCs) have to be used to enable higher
sampling rate and to simplify the hardware. An Expectation-Maximization (EM)
based algorithm is proposed for solving this problem in a general setting.
Besides, we derive the Cramer-Rao Bound (CRB) and discuss the effects of
quantization and the optimal choice of the ADC characteristic. Numerical and
analytical analysis reveals that reliable estimation may still be possible even
when the quantization is very coarse.
