Generalized ambiguity function analysis of MIMO SAR

Abstract

A newly developing conception of Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) based on Multi-Input Multi-Output (MIMO) array has drawn much attention for its potential advantages to simultaneously improve the performance of static scene imaging and ground moving target indication (GMTI) by utilizing multiple antennas both at transmission and reception. To better exploit the potential benefits of MIMO SAR, we extend the idea of generalized ambiguity function (GAF) in conventional single or multi-channel SAR to MIMO SAR in this paper. The GAF is developed to simultaneously characterize the effects of array geometry and waveform sets on resolution performance. Some simulation experiments are carried out to illustrate the effectiveness of the analysis.