MIMO radar

In a MIMO system, the transmitting signals from the single transmitters are different. As a result, the echo signals can be re-assigned to the source. This gives an enlarged virtual receive aperture.

Multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) radar is an extension of a traditional radar system to utilize multiple-inputs and multiple-outputs (antennas), similar to MIMO techniques used to increase the capacity of a radio link.[1] [2] MIMO radar is an advanced type of phased array radar employing digital receivers and waveform generators distributed across the aperture. MIMO radar signals propagate in a fashion similar to multistatic radar. However, instead of distributing the radar elements throughout the surveillance area, antennas are closely located to obtain better spatial resolution, Doppler resolution, and dynamic range.[3] MIMO radar may also be used to obtain low-probability-of-intercept radar properties.[4]

In a traditional phased array system, additional antennas and related hardware are needed to improve spatial resolution. MIMO radar systems transmit mutually orthogonal signals from multiple transmit antennas, and these waveforms can be extracted from each of the receive antennas by a set of matched filters. For example, if a MIMO radar system has 3 transmit antennas and 4 receive antennas, 12 signals can be extracted from the receiver because of the orthogonality of the transmitted signals. That is, a 12-element virtual antenna array is created using only 7 antennas by conducting digital signal processing on the received signals, thereby obtaining a finer spatial resolution compared with its phased array counterpart.

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference :0 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Kalkan, Yılmaz (2024). "20 Years of MIMO Radar". IEEE Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine: 1–5. doi:10.1109/MAES.2023.3349228. ISSN 0885-8985.
  3. ^ Rabideau, D.J. (2003). "Ubiquitous MIMO multifunction digital array radar". The Thirty-Seventh Asilomar Conference on Signals, Systems & Computers, 2003. Vol. 1. pp. 1057–1064. doi:10.1109/ACSSC.2003.1292087. ISBN 978-0-7803-8104-9. S2CID 60452716.
  4. ^ Rabideau, D J (2003). Ubiquitous MIMO Multifunction Digital Array Radar ... and the Role of Time-Energy Management in Radar (PDF). DEFENSE TECHNICAL INFORMATION CENTER. Archived (PDF) from the original on December 3, 2019.