A Cramér–Rao Bound-Based MIMO Radar Waveform Design for High-Precision Amplitude Estimation

This article focuses on the transmit waveform design for multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) radar systems. The design goal is to enhance the target amplitude estimation performance of MIMO radar in colored noise. To this purpose, we utilize the Cramér–Rao bound (CRB) on the target amplitude estimation error as the design metric. Additionally, a peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) constraint is imposed on the transmitted waveforms to mitigate the nonlinear distortions caused by the power amplifier. To address the formulated nonconvex problem, we propose two iterative algorithms: one leveraging the alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM) and the other using minorization–maximization (MM). The experimental results demonstrate that the designed waveforms achieve lower CRB and reduced amplitude estimation errors than the counterparts.