Time‐variant focused range‐angle dependent beampattern synthesis by frequency diverse array radar

Abstract

The frequency diverse array (FDA) radar has been extensively studied due to its unique range-angle dependent beampattern. Time-invariant spatial patterns have been reported for FDAs proposed so far. However, some recent studies indicate that the patterns obtained by using these methodologies neglect the time-range or frequency-phase relationship, and the definition of time in some equations are misinterpreted which results in erroneous conclusions. Taking the time-variant property of FDA beampatterns into consideration, in this study, the authors propose a short range FDA radar to generate a time-variant focused range-angle dependent transmit beampattern, where chirp waveform with multi-carrier FDA architecture is used. Both the fixed and time-modulated frequency offsets are considered to analyse the proposed FDA radar. The frequency offset employed across each element is generated by chaos sequence and sine function. By compensating the propagation delays of signals, the transmitted signals sum up constructively to focus on the desired range-angle sector only at a specific instant of time. Numerical results are implemented to verify the validity of the proposed schemes.