Comparison of virtual arrays for MIMO radar applications based on hexagonal configurations

In this contribution a MIMO radar concept based on a hexagonal configuration of antenna elements is presented. The concept has been designed for a radar system with 7 transmitting and 7 receiving antenna elements and has been compared to a common two dimensional MIMO arrangement. It is shown that the presented hexagonal setup improves the side lobe suppression by 3 dB while enhancing the angular resolution to 13.8°. Furthermore a thinning method for the hexagonal arrangement is presented. Finally, radar measurements have been performed in order to compare the performance of the concepts in a close range scenario.