Adaptive high resolution MIMO radar with unitary waveform matrix scheduling

Abstract

In this paper, we present a method of detecting the range and Doppler phase of a point target using multiple antennas. As a key illustrative example, we consider a 4 × 4 system employing a unitary matrix waveform set, e.g., formed from Golay complementary sequences. When a non-negligible Doppler shift is induced by the target motion, the waveform matrix formed from the complementary sequences is no longer unitary, resulting in significantly degraded target range estimates. To solve this problem, a novel Doppler estimation and compensation scheme based on a clever application of DFT is developed that provides notable improvements, both in detection performance, and processing times. We present means to adaptively control the transmitted waveforms to further enhance the system performance. Proof-of-concept simulations are presented verifying the efficacy of the proposed Doppler compensation and estimation technique for our unitary waveform matrix designs.