Low angle estimation for MIMO radar with arbitrary array structures

摘要

Low angle target estimation is always a difficult problem for radar elevation estimation. Multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) radar can increase array degree of freedom and resolution, and improve the low angle target measurement precision. At the same time, the computation complexity of the MIMO radar is also increasing, especially for non-uniform linear array (ULA) configuration in which some fast algorithms cannot be used. In this paper, a fast low angle target estimation method is proposed for monostatic MIMO radar with arbitrary array configurations. With the array interpolation and the quasi-spatial-smoothing technique, the MIMO steering vector can be transformed into a virtual low dimension (typical similar size as the number of array elements) ULA steering vector. Then, the polynomial rooting algorithm is used to estimate the elevation of the low angle target. The simulation results of the proposed algorithm are presented and the performances are investigated and analysed.