MIMO over-the-horizon radar waveform design for target detection

We study the waveform design problem for a multiple-input multiple-output over-the-horizon (MIMO-OTH) radar system faced with a combination of additive Gaussian noise and signal dependent clutter. Considering the operational frequency of the MIMO-OTH radar is generally limited to a certain frequency band due to propagation and implementation issues, the waveform transmitted at each antenna is constructed as a weighted sum of discrete prolate spheroidal (DPS) sequences which have good orthogonal and band-limited properties. Optimum waveforms (possibly nonorthogonal) are designed to maximize the target detection performance of the MIMO-OTH radar system with the constraint of fixed total transmitted energy. The performance of the proposed waveforms is analyzed.