Target estimation using MIMO radar with multiple subcarriers

Abstract

This paper analyzes the effect of waveform parameters on the joint target location and velocity estimation by a noncoherent multiple input multiple output (MIMO) radar transmitting multiple subcarriers signals. How the number of subcarriers influences the estimation accuracy is illustrated by considering the joint Cramer-Rao bound and the mean square error of the maximum likelihood estimate. The noncoherent MIMO radar ambiguity function with multiple subcarriers is developed and investigated by changing the number of subcarriers, the pulse width and the frequency spacing between adjacent subcarriers. The numerical results show that more subcarriers mean more accurate estimates, higher localization resolution, and larger pulse width results in a worse performance of target location estimation, while the frequency spacing affects target location estimation little.