Slow-Time FDA-MIMO Technique With Application to STAP Radar

Unlike the conventional phased array, the frequency-diverse array (FDA) employs a tiny frequency increment across the array elements, which is capable of providing range-angle-time-dependent beampattern, and thereby offers potential benefits in target localization and interference mitigation. Reported literature on FDA mostly focuses on its intrapulse (fast-time) property and ignores the interpulse (slow-time) feature induced by frequency offset. In this article, incorporating the neglected inherent slow-time coding feature, a novel slow-time FDA multiple-input multiple-output (FDA-MIMO) technique is proposed for the space-time adaptive processing (STAP) radar. The new coding scheme can separate transmitting (Tx) signals via slow-time Doppler filtering, and the problem of signal aliasing is tackled by appropriately designing the slow-time codes. At the receiving (Rx) side, two Rx schemes are devised for recovering range-dependent Tx degrees-of-freedom. Moreover, the relevant clutter rank and the rule for code design are derived in detail. The outstanding merits of the proposed slow-time FDA-MIMO STAP radar consist of the following: There is no specific restriction on the probing waveform; the negative effect of time-variant pattern is perfectly eliminated; and both the target localization accuracy and clutter suppression performance are superior over the state-of-the-art FDA radar systems. Numerical results corroborate the superiorities of the proposed waveform strategy for STAP application.