Target Model Effects on MIMO Radar Performance

A simple comparison between "spatial MIMO" (multiple input-multiple output), "frequency MIMO", and coherent netted radar systems shows that better performance can be achieved by the incoherent processing approaches. This assumes that the MIMO techniques acquire independent samples and there is no a priori information available to the netted radar enabling the incoming signals to be phase-aligned (P.F. Sammartino et al., 2006). Here we consider a more detailed model for target backscatter in order to gain a deeper sight into the true potential of these radar signal processing techniques. The overall aim of this work is to understand the performances available when real targets are under surveillance and to understand which conditions make MIMO perform best or, at least, better than a netted radar system. The target models introduced here are a step towards this aim