This paper presents a passive direction finding of a virtual time reversal method based on cross antenna array (CROSS-VTR), which aim is to solve the problem that the number of antenna elements of planar arrays is too large and the layout of circular arrays is complex which requires high hardware design. In order to verify the feasibility and accuracy of the algorithm, the mathematical model of the cross antenna array is first established. The search area of yaw angle and a pitch angle of the CROSS-VTR algorithm is determined according to the basic principle of passive time reversal focusing, and then, the time-reversed signal of each antenna element completes the time delay compensation at each scanning point in the search area. The compensated signals of each antenna element are added up to obtain the signal energy of each scanning point. The value of the yaw angle and pitch angle is obtained by searching the maximum energy among scanning points along the search route of yaw angle and pitch angle, respectively. Finally, the validity of the method is verified and compared with the music algorithm (multiple signal classification) based on the cross antenna array. The results show that the method has good direction finding accuracy at low signalto-noise ratio.INDEX TERMS Cross antenna array, passive direction finding, DOA estimation algorithm, virtual time reversal method.