A novel signal processing method for MIMO radar based on channel estimation

Multiple input multiple output (MIMO) radars have been intensively studied for their superior performance merits compared to conventional radars including improved spatial resolution and parameter estimation. To achieve these merits, the transmitted waveforms from the MIMO transmitting antennas should be mutually orthogonal. Herein, the orthogonality is attained in the Doppler domain, namely Doppler division multiple access (DDMA), as it enjoys the simplest structure among other orthogonality schemes. Heretofore, the research in MIMO radars has focused on optimizing MIMO radar performance from different aspects including efficient waveform design, antenna beam-forming, and adaptive processing techniques. However, MIMO radars have been also a target of deliberate jamming scenarios. In this paper, the focus is turned to the evaluation of the detection performance of DDMA MIMO radars in jamming environments by creating a two-sided engagement scenario. On the jammer side, a jamming technique is proposed, Doppler-range block jamming (DRBJ), to deny the detection of a DDMA MIMO radar equipped with a moving target detector (MTD). On the radar side, a comparative detection performance analysis of two different MIMO radar detectors, normalized adaptive matched filter (NAMF) and fast 3D constant false alarm rate (CFAR), is conducted using Monte Carlo simulations. This analysis unveils divergent design philosophies of the two detectors, with each prioritizing distinct performance objectives.

A multiple input multiple output (MIMO) radar is an emerging field which has attracted many researchers recently. In this type of radar, unlike an standard phased array radar, one can choose transmitted probing signals freely to maximize the power around the locations of the targets of interest, or more generally to approximate a given transmit beam-pattern, or to minimize the cross-correlation of the signals reflected back to the radar by the targets of interest. These signals can be correlated to each other or noncorrelated. Many papers have investigated beampattern design and waveforming in MIMO radars. One of the most famous approaches for beampattern design is named covariance based method which design cross-correlation matrix of transmitted signals instead of the signals. On the other hand, many papers have investigated beamforming of an standard phased array radar in different ways. In this paper it is desirable to design beampattern of a phased array radar by means of the MIMO radar covariance based beampattern design method, as a special case of general MIMO radar. Although many approaches are available for beamforming of phased array radar this approach would have less complexity compare to them. MATLAB software is being employed for simulations. (6 pages)

The problem of tracking the direction of arrivals (DOA) and the direction of departure (DOD) of multiple moving targets is considered in bistatic multiple input multiple output (MIMO) radar. A low complexity angle tracking algorithm in bistatic MIMO radar is proposed. The proposed algorithm derived the difference between previous and current covariance matrices. And the relationship between the different of covariance matrices and the different of target angle is derived. The performance of the proposed algorithm is improved by averaging the covariance matrix elements. Last DOD and DOA are got by least square method. This algorithm avoids the decomposition of the covariance matrix and reduces the computational complexity, which realizes DOA and DOD of the adjacent moment automatic association. The simulation results demonstrate effectiveness of the proposed algorithm. The algorithm provides the technical support for the practical application of MIMO radar.

The moving target detection based on compressed sending (CS) multiple-input multiple output (MIMO) radar with widely separated antennas is studied. The centralized processing is considered. The traditional centralized MIMO radar requires an exhaustive search on every possible two dimensional target velocity, resulting in huge computational complexity. In this paper, we adopt the CS technique to drastically reduce the computational burden and evaluate the reduction of the required complexity. We derive the moving target detector for the CS MIMO radar. The performance of the proposed detector is analyzed, and the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves are provided.

In this paper, we deal with the problem of simultaneously detecting and tracking multiple targets using polarimetric multiple input multiple output (MIMO) radars. The problem is formulated in a Bayesian framework by modeling the collection of states as a random finite set. First, we propose a multiple sensor Multi-Bernoulli (MS-MeMber) filter based track-before-detect (TBD) algorithm suitable for both MIMO radars and polarimetric MIMO radars. Then the sequential Monte Carlo (SMC) implementations are performed to prove the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm. Simulation results show that the polarization diversity can be exploited to enhance the detecting and tracking performance of MIMO radars.

A reduced-dimension RML method for transmit beamspace-based MIMO radar

The colocated multiple input multiple output (MIMO) radar can simultaneously obtain the multi-dimensional information of target for its diversity advantage. Combining the idea of MIMO radar and multiple pulse repetition frequency (PRF), this paper uses multiple orthogonal signals with different medium PRF simultaneously to obtain the target's range and velocity information of different PRF through matched filtering at the receiver. In the simulations, four orthogonal signals at four different PRF are transmitted to obtain the range and velocity information from the total echo signal. All of the results show the feasibility of this model.

A multiple input multiple output (MIMO) radar system is an emerging research field which has attracted many studies in recent years. This type of radar, unlike conventional phased array radar, can transmit different probing signals via its antennas, that may be correlated or uncorrelated with each other. This waveform diversity offered by MIMO radar systems enable superior capabilities compared to conventional phased array radar. Many papers have introduced different ways for beamforming of MIMO radar. In this paper it is desirable to analysis some methods for beamforming of MIMO radars with planar arrays constellation and examine their 3D result beam-pattern of such constellations for covariance based MIMO radar waveforming method. MATLAB software is being employed for simulations.

Multiple Input-Multiple Output (MIMO) radar is the recent emergence of a new radar technology. This radar system is a new concept advanced for the inadequacy of the traditional system, it use spatial diversity and angel diversity to avoid multipath fading. In this paper, we mainly analyze the detection performance of MIMO radar, and at the same time compared its detection performance with phased array radar under the same conditions. This paper first established MIMO radar’s signal model based on the distribution of sources, and then analyzes the affect of radar’s detection performance through changing the number of antenna. The simulation result showed that the MIMO radar has a good detection performance compared with phased array radar in low signal-noise-ratio(SNR).

MIMO radar can provide enhanced spatial resolution and achieve better target detection performance. Hence the parameter identifiability of the system can be significantly improved. In this paper, the issue of direction of arrival (DOA) estimation in multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) radar is discussed, and several algorithms for DOA tracking based on monostatic MIMO radar in impulsive noise background are proposed and studied. These tracking algorithms are based on the concept of robust covariation (ROC), fractional lower order moment (FLOM), fractional lower order cyclic (FLOC) and similar normalization. The transmit and receive arrays of a monostatic narrowband MIMO radar are assumed to be close to each other and eigenstructure based MUSIC algorithm at the receiver is used to identify the DOA's of the targets of interest. Simulation results verify the usefulness of the proposed algorithms. The comparison of these four tracking algorithms show that the algorithm based on the concept of similar normalization has better performance than the others.

For airborne radar systems, space-time adaptive processing (STAP) is the approach that is normally adopted to detect ground moving targets in ground clutter, but the technique becomes less effective if the speed of ground moving targets is very low because of the proximity of the Doppler frequency of targets to that of ground clutter. Typical low-speed ground target detection scenarios include detecting ground troops and slowly-moving ground vehicles. Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) radar possesses multiple transmitting and receiving channels providing additional diversified reflections for fusion processing in target detection and measurements. MIMO radar has been extensively investigated [1, 2]; but the exact structure of MIMO radar is defined widely different. In this work, an innovative multi-level MIMO radar signal processing architecture is proposed for airborne systems to effectively detect low-speed ground moving targets. The new MIMO-based approach is demonstrated to be effective for detecting such low-speed ground targets in this work, and some simulation results are presented subsequently.

Multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) radar requires orthogonal waveforms to be transmitted on each transmit element or subarray. One practical problem that arises is the complexity and expense of the hardware needed to implement MIMO radar. Slow-time MIMO waveforms, often referred to as SLO-MO waveforms, allow the implementation of MIMO radar without any hardware modifications to the receiver. However, generation of the SLO-MO MIMO waveforms on the transmitter typically requires a multichannel arbitrary waveform generator, variable RF phase shifters, or using multiple carrier frequencies. All of these options can be expensive, especially at microwave frequencies. This paper describes a technique to generate SLO-MO MIMO waveforms using low-cost passive frequency mixers with existing (non-MIMO) radar architectures. Passive frequency mixers are inexpensive and easy to add inline to existing radar transmitters. This paper presents the concept of double-sideband and quadrature MIMO slow-time radar, along with experimental results from the Duke S-band radar testbed.

In multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) radar, the efficiency of target detection in clutter that is distributed over a certain range bin-Doppler frequency region depends on the sidelobe level of the waveformspsila auto- and cross-ambiguity functions within this region. We introduce the MIMO ambiguity function as the sum of all auto- and cross-ambiguity functions of the K MIMO radar waveforms, with the integral of this function over some range-Doppler region serving as a measure of the orthogonality (separability) of the waveforms within this region of interest. We derive an upper bound on the attainable ldquoclear areardquo for the MIMO ambiguity function, and show that, with respect to the conventional single-waveform ambiguity function, the maximum clear area is K times smaller for the MIMO system.

By transmitting multiple independent waveforms at the transmit side and processing echoes of spatial targets at the receive side, Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) radar enjoys virtual array aperture expansion and more degree of freedom (DOF), both of which favors the application of direction finding or estimation of direction of arrival (DOA). The expanded virtual aperture provides higher angular resolution which also promotes the precision of DOA estimation, and the extra DOF brought by waveform diversity can be leveraged to focus energy in certain spatial region for better direction-finding capacity. However, beamspace methods which match certain beampatterns suffer from deteriorated performance and complexity in implementation, and the advantage of virtual array aperture is limited by its virtual element redundancy. As an important performance indicator of DOA estimation, Cramer–Rao Bound (CRB) is closely connected to the array configuration of the system. To reduce the complexity of the system and improve CRB performance at the same time, in this paper, the virtual array of MIMO radar is designed directly by selecting outputs from matched filters at the receive side. For the sake of fair comparison, both scenarios with and without priori directions are considered to obtain optimized virtual array configuration, respectively. The original combinatorial problems are approximated by sequential convex approximations methods which produce solutions with efficiency. Numerical results demonstrate that the proposed method can provide thinned virtual arrays with excellent CRB performance.

In the radar target tracking stage, the repeater deception jamming can produce multiple false targets around the real target after matched filtering, which makes radar lose tracking of the real target. In this paper, a frequency-phase joint agility anti-repeater deception jamming waveform for Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) radar is designed by the memristive radial basis function neural network (memristive-RBFNN), and the optimization of the waveform modulation coding is transformed into the optimization of the basis function parameters of the memristive-RBFNN. The memristive-RBFNN generates the frequency-phase joint agile waveform modulation sequence directly, thus greatly reduced the computational complexity of the waveform optimization algorithm. The designed frequency-phase joint agile waveform reduced the correlation between real target echo signal and repeater deception jamming to realize the suppression of repeater deception jamming. The simulation analyzes the computation complexity of proposed algorithm, and the jamming suppression performance is also given to verify the feasibility of this method proposed in this paper.