A novel joint parameter estimation method based on fractional ambiguity function in bistatic multiple-input multiple-output radar system

Abstract Due to the three dimensional motion characteristics of the target, the received scattering signal often contains a cubic term in its phase function. The existing signal model is not appropriate to approximate parameters in this case. In this paper, we propose a new signal model to accurately estimate parameters of the target. We use a novel approach, the fractional ambiguity function, to estimate Doppler frequency parameters in the fractional Fourier transform domain. Furthermore, we also develop two sub-array models to accurately estimate the direction-of-departure and direction-of-arrival by employing the proposed fractional cross-ambiguity function based MUSIC (FCAF-MUSIC) algorithm and the fractional cross-ambiguity function based ESPRIT (FCAF-ESPRIT) algorithm. Simulation results are presented to verify the effectiveness of the proposed method.