Advanced signaling strategies for the Hybrid MIMO phased-array radar

The Hybrid MIMO Phased Array Radar, or HMPAR, is a notional concept for a multisensor radar architecture that combines elements of traditional phased-array radar with the emerging technology of Multiple-Input Multiple Output (MIMO) radar. A HMPAR comprises a large number, MP, of T/R elements, organized into M subarrays of P elements each. Within each subarray, passive element-level phase shifting is used to steer transmit and receive beams in some desired fashion. Each of the M subarrays are in turn driven by independently amplified phase-coded signals. This paper proposes new transmit signal selection strategies based on the observation that some MIMO signal sets, such as those proposed by us previously, cause a very rapid sequential or raster scan across some field of view. Exploiting this property allows one to create and process multiple beams simultaneously. Furthermore, there exists a range-angle coupling in the transmit and receive signals that may lead to high-resolution target localization. © 2010 IEEE