Airborne MIMO investigation for STAP-GMTI applications

Ground moving target indicator (GMTI) radar performance is strongly depending on the antenna geometry: length of the equivalent radar aperture (longer apertures enable lower minimum detectable velocity - MDV) and sparsity. Compact and sparse multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) techniques have been investigated into this paper to point out potential benefits compared to SIMO configuration. In 2016 an experiment was conducted with ONERA BUSARD motoglider to collect MIMO GMTI dataset on instrumented ground vehicles. DDMA waveform has been operated as orthogonal pattern on transmit. Analysis of the data indicates improved clutter nulling and resulting MDV with the MIMO techniques compared to the conventional SIMO one.