Colocated MIMO radar waveform-design based on two-step optimizations in spatial and spectral domains

We propose an efficient colocated multiple-input multiple-output radar waveform-design method based on two-step optimizations in the spatial and spectral domains. First, a minimum integrated side-lobe level strategy is adopted to obtain the desired beam pattern with spatial nulling. By recovering the hidden convexity of the resulting fractional quadratically constrained quadratic programming non-convex problem, the global optimal solution can be achieved in polynomial time through a semi-definite relaxation followed by spectral factorization. Second, with the transmit waveforms obtained via spatial optimization, a phase changing diagonal matrix is introduced and optimized via power method-like iterations. Without influencing the shape of the optimized beam pattern, the transmit waveforms are further optimized in the spectral domain, and the desired spectral nulling is formed to avoid radar interference on the overlaid licensed radiators. Finally, the superior performance of the proposed method is demonstrated via numerical results and comparisons with other approaches to waveform design.