A Distributed MIMO Radar With Joint Optimal Transmit and Receive Signal Combining

Multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) radar systems are popular for their ability to mitigate the target radar cross section fluctuations and null Doppler. However, MIMO radar fundamentally suffers from a notable signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) loss compared to an ideal phased-array (PA) radar. In order to overcome this drawback, a distributed MIMO radar scheme with joint optimal transmit and receive signal combining method is proposed in this work. In view of the optimality, the proposed scheme outperforms the most popular combining methods of MIMO radar addressed in the literature. Also, the proposed scheme performs same as the ideal PA radar in case of the nonfluctuating target. In case of fluctuating targets, the proposed scheme outperforms PA radar at high SNR.