Direction synthesis in DOA estimation for monostatic multiple input multiple output (MIMO) radar based on synthetic impulse and aperture radar (SIAR) and its performance analysis

A new direction synthetic method for monostatic multiple input multiple output (MIMO) radar is presented based on synthetic impulse and aperture radar (SIAR) system. Concerned with the monostatic MIMO radar which simultaneously emits orthogonal signals with multi-carrier-frequency and possesses sparsely distributed transmitting and receiving arrays with respective location, as well as the situation for the presence of multipath propagation in the low flying target's echo, the method integrates the aperture of the transmitting arrays with the receiving arrays to form the digital beam-forming (DBF) in azimuth and elevation dimensions. And a study has been made of planar general MUSIC algorithm based on decorrelating the multipath signals of multi-carrier-frequency MIMO radar. Through compensating the phase delay of both the transmitting and the receiving arrays and synthesizing the transmitting beam in two dimensions at the receiver, the angular resolution and measurement accuracy are improved and the computational complexity is reduced after transforming the three-dimensional (3D) parameter estimation problem into a two-dimensional (2D) one. Finally, the Cramer-Rao Bounds (CRBs) of DOA estimation for azimuth and elevation is put forward with the exsiting multipath propagation. Results of computer simulation demonstrate the validity of the new method.