Design of Discrete Frequency-Coding Waveforms Using Phase-Coded Linear Chirp for Multiuser and MIMO Radar Systems

To perform successful detection of a target, the waveforms operating in a multiuser radar system and multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) radar system should maintain minimum cross-correlations among themselves. In this paper, design of discrete frequency-coding waveform (DFCW) using linear chirp (LC) pulse and pseudo-noise (PN) code sequence is proposed to improve the autocorrelation sidelobe peak (ASP) and cross-correlation peak (CCP) levels of the waveforms. To achieve minimum cross-correlation levels between different waveforms, for a multiuser and MIMO radar system, a two-stage optimization process is proposed. In the first stage, optimization of the frequency-firing sequence of the waveforms is performed and in the second stage, PN-code sequence optimization is performed in order to obtain the overall optimized waveforms. The performance of the proposed waveforms in a multiuser and MIMO radar system is analyzed. In comparison with the performance of multiuser and MIMO radar system designed using other available DFCW, the performances of the radar systems using proposed waveforms are better in terms of maintaining lower ASP and CCP levels. In addition, performance of the proposed waveforms under Doppler frequency variation is also presented.