Effects of Model Mismatch in MIMO Radar

The current literature on MIMO radar commonly uses a signal model that assumes that the Doppler and delay parameters of the scatterers lie on a discrete grid. The Doppler and delay of actual scatterers take on arbitrary values causing a mismatch between this model and reality. Here, we develop a signal model that takes into account this mismatch and shows that it causes a distortion of the array manifold. This distortion, which is unique to MIMO radar, impacts the results of array processing functions such as beamforming, null steering, and direction finding. The degree of performance degradation caused by this is illustrated by numerical examples.