Robust waveform design for MIMO radars

The problem of robust waveform design for multiple-input, multiple-output radars equipped with widely-spaced antennas is addressed here. Robust design is needed as a number of parameters are unknown, e.g., the target scattering covariance matrix and, possibly, the clutter covariance matrix. A min-max approach is proposed, so that the code matrix is designed to minimize the worst-case cost (or equivalently maximize the corresponding figure of merit) under all possible target (or target and clutter) covariance matrices. Surprisingly, the same min-max solution applies to many commonly adopted performance measures, such as the average signal-to-clutter-plus-noise ratio, the mutual information between the received signal echoes and the unknown target response, and the approximation of the detection probability in the high- and low-signal regimes.