FDA-MIMO Radar Range-Angle Estimation: CRLB, MSE, and Resolution Analysis

• Published in: IEEE transactions on aerospace and electronic systems Vol. 54; no. 1; pp. 284 - 294
• Main Authors: Xiong, Jie, Wang, Wen-Qin, Gao, Kuandong
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York IEEE 01-02-2018; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Algorithm design and analysis; Array signal processing; Cramer-Rao bounds; Estimation; FDA-MIMO radar; frequency diverse array (FDA); localization; Lower bounds; MIMO; MIMO radar; Multiple signal classification; multiple signal classification (MUSIC); multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) radar; Radar range; range-dependent; resolution threshold; Signal classification; Target detection
• ISSN: 0018-9251; 1557-9603
• DOI: 10.1109/TAES.2017.2756498

Multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) radar enjoys the advantage of increased degrees-of-freedom and spatial diversity gain, but it cannot effectively resolves the targets closely spaced in the same angle cell (but different range cells). Frequency diverse array (FDA)-MIMO radar can handle this problem by exploiting its range-dependent beampattern. FDA-MIMO radar was, thus, suggested for range-angle estimation of targets. Nevertheless, it is necessary to provide theoretical performance analysis for such a relatively new radar technique. Since multiple signal classification (MUSIC) algorithm is widely adopted in most of the FDA-MIMO literature, this paper derives the Cramér-Rao lower bound and mean square error expressions in MUSIC-based range-angle estimation algorithms for a general FDA-MIMO radar. Furthermore, the corresponding range and angle resolution thresholds in target detection and localization are also derived. Numerical results verify that the FDA-MIMO indeed outperforms conventional MIMO radar in both range-angle estimation and resolution threshold performance.