Frequency diverse array radar for target range-angle estimation

Abstract

Purpose Frequency diverse array (FDA) radar with uniform frequency offset between antenna elements has been proposed and investigated, which exhibits a range-angle-dependent beampattern. Nevertheless, because of the coupling in range and angle responses, it cannot estimate directly both the range and angle information of a target.The purpose of this paper is to consider a sub-array scheme of range-angle joint estimation of a target for frequency diverse array (FDA) radar. Design/methodology/approach First, The entire array is divided into two sub-arrays, which employs two different frequency offsets. For aperture extension, each sub-array adopts difference co-array structure . Therefore, the targets range and angle can be estimated directly with the subspace-based multiple signal classification algorithms for the decoupling capability of distance and angle dimensional. The estimation performance is examined by analyzing the Cramer-Rao lower bound (CRLB) versus signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). Findings Each sub-array adopts difference co-array structure to provide degrees of freedom by only physical sensors when the second-order statistics of the received data is used. And the sub-array is equivalent to two sets of equations to solve two unknown quantities, and the closed solution of the unknown quantity can be directly determined, which cannot be gained by the phase-array radar and basic ULA FDA radar. Finally, numerical simulation results verify the validity of the proposed method. Originality/value In this paper, we devise a subarray scheme on FDA radar for range and angle estimation. In order to aperture extension, difference co-array is employed in each subarrays, and more targets can be distinguished than the physical sensors. The range and angle estimation performance is examined by analyzing the CRLB.