Performance analysis of coherent parameters estimation algorithm for distributed coherent aperture radar

Abstract

Distributed coherent aperture radar (DCAR) can be applied to improve the target tracking and identification performance through adjusting transmitting/receiving timing and phase of spatial distributed radars via the coherent parameters (CPs). Therefore, estimating high precision of CPs is the core and prerequisite for DCAR to realize coherent synthesis. In this paper, we introduce the workflow of DCAR and build the multi-scattering center echo model. Then the influence imposed on two existing CPs estimation algorithm, i.e., peak picking and cross correlation, are analyzed in detail, which caused by non-ideal orthogonality of orthogonal signal set. The analysis results shows that non-ideal orthogonality of signal set will lead to inconsistent estimation accuracy between transmit and receive CPs in the same signal to noise ratio. Simulation experiments verify the correctness of the theoretical analyses.