MIMO Passive Radar Tracking Under a Single Frequency Network

In conventional MIMO radars, transmitting waveforms are usually assumed to be mutually orthogonal. This is also the case for MIMO passive radar when the transmitters occupy non-overlapping frequency channels, such as the FM-based MIMO passive radar. For the single frequency network (SFN)-based MIMO passive radar (SMPR), all illuminators transmit the same content at the same frequency simultaneously, that makes the signal indistinguishable. Therefore, one has to solve the measurement-to-transmitter association herein in addition to the standard measurement-to-target association in conventional MIMO radars. This paper investigates the non-standard target tracking for SMPR. A novel approach is proposed to achieve real-time operation as well as nearly optimal performance. Simulation results show comparable performance to the case with known association. Moreover, the feasibility of the proposed approach is demonstrated using field experimental data.