Moving target detection in airborne MIMO radar for fluctuating target RCS model

This paper considers the problem of target detection for multiple-input multiple- output with colocated antennas on a moving airborne platform. The target´s radar cross section fluctuations degrade the detection performance of the radar. In this paper, first, we introduce a spatiotemporal signal model for airborne colocated MIMO radar which handles arbitrary transmit and receive antennas placement. Then, we employ the likelihood ratio test to derive the decision rules for fluctuating and nonfluctuating targets. In the case offull knowledge of target and interference statistic characteristics, we propose two detectors for fluctuating and nonfluctuating targets. The proposed detector can be used to evaluate adaptive detectors such as Kelly detector where the interference covariance matrix is estimated using training data. Simulation results have been provided to evaluate the detection performance of the proposed detectors.