Abstract: A new type of genetic algorithm combined the simulated annealing with the advantage of guaranteeing convergence and deciding convergence easily is used for optimization the performance in estimation direction-of-arrival of linear array. In the process of optimization, not only the position of element, but also the number is used as variable. This can provide more degree of freedom to control characters of non-uniform linear array. It can use fewer elements to obtain the estimation accuracy of DOA. And it also can simplify equipment and decrease the computation complexity. The simulation results show that this method has strong ability to find the global optimization solution.