Parameter Estimation and Number Detection of MIMO Radar Targets

This paper considers the problem of target parameter estimation and number detection of multi-input multi-output (MIMO) radar targets. Cyclic optimization algorithms are presented to obtain the maximum likelihood (ML) estimates of the target parameters and a Bayesian information criterion (BIC) is used for target number detection. Specifically, an approximate cyclic optimization (ACO) approach is first presented, which maximizes the likelihood function approximately. Then an exact cyclic optimization (ECO) approach that maximizes the exact likelihood function is introduced for target parameter estimation. The ACO and ECO target parameter estimates are used with the BIC for target number determination. Numerical examples are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approaches for target parameter estimation and target number detection.