Distributed Coherent Aperture Radar on Moving Platforms: theoretical study and tests

Abstract

Distributed coherent aperture radar (DCAR) on moving platforms can cleverly solve the contradictions between the radar great power detection and mobility, such that longrange and high-precision detection can be accomplished by energy coherent synthesizing of spatially distributed radars. However, the DCAR on moving platforms is confronted with large errors, poor coherence performance, and hard realization. In this paper, the effects on target coherent synthesis results from related errors caused by platform motion are analyzed in detail, and a refined coherence parameters (CPs) estimation algorithm based on coherent accumulation is proposed in the moving platforms situation. The proposed algorithm can reduce the negative effects of errors and low coherence performance by utilizing refined processing. In addition, we compare the proposed algorithm with other algorithms under the same condition. Then, a hardware test system of DCAR on moving platforms that can implement the proposed algorithm is built. Ultimately, the simulation and test results are provided to verify the correctness of the theory for the DCAR on moving platforms.