Transmit beampattern synthesis for chirp space-time coding array by time delay design

Abstract

In a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) radar, it is desired to maximize the power radiation in an angular region of interest, which, however, is hardly achievable because a set of orthogonal waveforms is employed at the engineering. Different from traditional colocated MIMO radar, space-time coding array (STCA) transmits an identical waveform with a tiny time delay circulating across array elements. It can provide a simple way to achieve the full angular coverage with a stable gain. In this paper, a new scheme referred to as chirp-STCA is proposed to synthesize the desired beampattern flexibly. With the quantitative relationship between the time delay and the span of beam spreading, the transmit beampattern synthesis issue is converted to the design of time delay value which can be readily realized based on the framework of chirp-STCA. As a result, the desired angular sector coverage of the radiation power can be realized by setting a proper time delay. The proposed chirp-STCA can provide many desired features including low range sidelobe level, low computational complexity, and constant modulus. In addition, the range-angle properties are examined by analyzing the transmit beampattern response and the ambiguity function. Numerical results are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness and simplicity of the chirp-STCA scheme for the transmit beampattern synthesis.