Time-Invariant Range-Angle-Dependent Beampattern Synthesis for FDA Radar Targets Tracking

The frequency-diverse array (FDA) radar has drawn substantial attention in recent years because of its particular range-angle-dependent beampattern. However, with the linear incremental frequency offset, the basic FDA radar's beampattern is time-variant, range-periodic, and coupled in range and angle dimensions, which limits FDA radar's practical application seriously. In this letter, we propose a novel transmit beampattern synthesis method using the multicarrier FDA architecture and nonlinear time-dependent frequency offset. As a result, a pencil-shaped time-invariant and range-angle-dependent beampattern can be synthesized for target tracking. Furthermore, a time division method is utilized to form multiple narrow pencil-shaped beampatterns for tracking multiple targets within one pulse duration. Simulation results show the effectiveness of the proposed scheme and demonstrate its outperformance via comparison to other existing methods.