Non-linear processing for multicarrier MIMO Radar for Improved Target Resolution

The matched filter receiver is derived with signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) or detection performance as the optimality criterion, and does not consider target resolution. In this paper, we investigate non-linear processing schemes which can provide resolution better than the matched filter receiver. A Multicarrier MIMO Radar is considered, where each transmit antenna uses a different subcarrier. First, we derive ambiguity function for such a system. Then we study the improvement in delay-Doppler images of proposed non-linear processing schemes when compared with optimal linear matched filter processing. Closed form expressions for probability of detection and false alarm for proposed schemes are then derived. We observe that our non-linear schemes provide significant improvement in target resolution with very small degradation in detection performance.