Transmit Beampattern Design in Range and Angle Domains for MIMO Frequency Diverse Array Radar

The frequency diverse array (FDA) has a range-angle-dependent transmit beampattern, which can provide the potential capability for novel radar application. However, the basic FDA's beampattern is periodic in range and coupled in range and angle dimensions, which limits the application of FDA in radar field. In this letter, we propose a novel FDA model with nonmonotone increasing frequency offset to form a narrow pencil beam, which eliminates the range periodicity and coupling of range and angle domains. Combining this new FDA with multiple-input–multiple-output radar, not only can multiple narrow pencil beams be formed to track multiple targets simultaneously, but also a flat-top transmit beampattern for targets searching can be synthesized. Simulation results show the effectiveness and outperformance of the proposed scheme compared to the existing Log-FDA, which uses the logarithmically increasing frequency offset.