Transmit beam control in low-altitude slow-moving small targets detection

Moving targets on the ground would affect the radar detection performance for low-altitude, slow-moving, and small (LSS) targets. This paper proposes a transmit beam control algorithm for phased array radar to minimize the radiation directed at the ground. By minimizing weighted vector norm and implementing different notch level, the admired beam can achieve a deep notch in the region associated with ground moving targets and maintains good mainlobe and sidelobe performance. Moreover, the designed beam is insensitive to array imperfections. The optimization problem can be converted to a second-order cone programming (SOCP) problem and solved with readily available solvers. In addition, the amplitude normalization is implemented on the optimized weight vector to make full use of emission power. Simulation results verify that the proposed approach can synthesize transmit beams that can meet the requirements of mainlobe loss minimization, low sidelobes on the ground side, and deep notch for the ground moving targets.