Energy allocation for correlated MIMO radar antennas with ricean targets

MIMO (multiple-input multiple-output) radar systems with widely separated transmitters and receivers have capacity to considerably improve the performance of radar systems. This is accomplished by utilizing the notion of spatial diversity as receivers can observe incoming echos originating off various aspect angles. This work attempts to alleviate the performance of MIMO systems in the existence of correlation and Ricean scattering models by proposing a power allocation scheme. The scheme adjusts weights at the antennas proportionally by taking account of any correlation and line-of-sight information present at the transmitters. Antennas who are correlated or perceive low line-of-sight reflectivity are allocated less power so that the total available energy is spread across diversity branches and strong reflectors more accordingly. Simulations are used to validate the results.