MIMO-Frequency Diverse Array Radar with Unequal Subarrays for Improved Range-Angle Dependent Beamforming

Frequency diverse array (FDA) radar has been proposed in last decade for joint range and angle beamforming of a target. Multiple input multiple output-frequency diverse array (MIMO-FDA) radar has also been presented recently in literature to steer multiple beams by creating subarrays in transmit array. These beams help to localize the target in range as well as angle dimension. Due to same subarray size, all the beams have same beamwidth and thus exhibit same response for a given target. In this paper, we have proposed an unequal size subarrays structure for the FDA radar (US-MIMO-FDA), which allow us more focusing of the target in range and angle dimension by using beams of variable width. As a result the echoes received at the receiver help in better estimation of target parameters. The effectiveness of proposed scheme has been shown by comparing transmit and received beam patterns of proposed scheme with MIMO-FDA with equal subarrays Performance analysis of proposed scheme has also been done in terms of output signal to interference plus noise ratio, detection probability and cramer-rao lower bound. Simulation and results have verified better focusing of target by proposed design as compared to existing subarrays schemes for MIMO-FDA.