Coherent collocated MIMO radar demonstration for air defence applications

Coherent collocated MIMO radar is an emerging technology from which is expected several benefits since digital and adaptive beamforming are available at both transmit and receive sides. A large number of papers are dealing with theoretical analysis of those benefits. Nevertheless, few experimental performance assessments of those benefits have been reported. During the last few years, ONERA has built a powerful and versatile surface radar testbed named HYCAM. Its design included a MIMO mode in order to test the different classes of waveforms in real conditions (hardware defaults, clutter characteristics) which can hardly be modeled with accuracy. After a recall of the MIMO processing principles, this paper sums up the benefits and drawbacks that are expected from this technology and the need of experimentation to verify those expectations. Then we will present ONERA's HYCAM MIMO testbed and first results of MIMO trials using this system as well. Those experimental results will be linked to a more general discussion on impacts of hardware defaults on MIMO radar waveforms performances.