Sparse Antenna Array Design for MIMO Active Sensing Applications

In active sensing applications, MIMO systems permit increased flexibility for transmit beampattern design, via waveform diversity, compared to phased-array approaches. When uniform arrays are not mandated, additional degrees of freedom for transmit beampattern design can be obtained via sparse array design considerations. Herein, we extend the motivation behind sparse receive array methodologies to that of sparse MIMO transmit array design. We propose a cyclic approach to MIMO transmit array design that can be used to approximate desired transmit beampatterns. Furthermore, we illustrate how this iterative approach can be adapted to design sparse receive antenna arrays using both vector and matrix weighting techniques.