Novel Multiplexing Scheme for Resolving the Velocity Ambiguity Problem in MIMO FMCW Radar Using MPSK Code

For the high-resolution DoA (Direction of Arrival) estimation, various multiplexing schemes are considered for the multi-input multi-output (MIMO) fast chirp frequency-modulated continuous-wave (FMCW) radar. However, current schemes such as time-division multiplexing (TDM) and binary-phase modulation (BPM) may reduce the maximum detectable velocity, which causes the velocity ambiguity problem. As an extension of the BPM scheme to mitigate this issue, we propose a novel multiplexing scheme using M phase-shift keying (MPSK) code which duplicates shifted target peaks at unequal intervals over the velocity domain. The proposed scheme finds the true peaks to resolve the velocity ambiguity problem by the inversion of the circulant matrix with low additional computation. In addition, the successful implementation of the proposed scheme is conducted with 4 by 8 MIMO uniform linear array (ULA) antennas through the state-of-the-art FMCW radar. Finally, the proposed scheme is compared to the conventional TDM based MIMO scheme regarding signal to noise ratio (SNR) and phase calibration issues for moving targets. The proposed scheme is to estimate the accurate 4D information of targets while resolving the velocity ambiguity problem in the MIMO FMCW radar systems.