Non-coherent MIMO radar for target estimation: More antennas means better performance

This paper presents an analysis of the joint estimation of target location and velocity using multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) radar. A theorem is formulated on the asymptotic properties of the maximum likelihood (ML) estimate The joint Cramer-Rao bound (CRB) is calculated for a Rayleigh fluctuating extended target. The mean square error (MSE) of the ML estimate is analyzed for orthogonal Gaussian pulses. It is shown that the signal to noise ratio (SNR) boundary between low and high MSE values can be lowered by increasing the number of antennas. The non-coherent MIMO radar ambiguity function (AF) is developed and illustrated by examples. It is shown that the product of the number of transmit and receive antennas can control the sidelobes level of the AF.