Performance of joint direction-of-departure and direction-of-arrival estimation in an ultra wideband MIMO radar depending on bandwidths

This paper evaluated the performance of joint direction-of-departure (DOD) and direction-of-arrival (DOA) estimation in an ultra wideband (UWB) multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) radar considering the effects of bandwidth. The proposed DOD and DOA estimation algorithm utilizes multiple sinusoidal waves swept over the UWB bandwidth as the radar signal. A two-dimensional MUSIC algorithm was adopted to estimate the respective DOD and DOA at each frequency, and then combined using majority decision to obtain the final DOD and DOA estimation. The estimation algorithm was evaluated while varying the center frequency and bandwidth of the UWB signal. It was found that taking larger bandwidth improves the estimation performance. It was also demonstrated that the usage of non-uniform MIMO arrays resulted in reduced estimation errors compared to estimation using uniform linear arrays. Experimental evaluation in a radio anechoic chamber validated the simulated results.