The Space-time Adaptive Processing Method in Airborne MIMO Radar with Nested Structure

The space-time adaptive processing (STAP) in the airborne multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) radar with nested structure is studied. According to the special structures of arrays and transmitting pulse interval, a virtual space-time snapshot vector with longer length is constructed. Both the virtual antenna array and the virtual pulse train formed by the nested array and nested pulse train are successive and hole-free. Then a Hermitian matrix is built to estimate the full rank clutter covariance matrix in airborne MIMO radar with nested structure. For the increasing DoFs, the STAP method can achieve higher upper bound in the airborne MIMO radar with nested structure than the STAP in the traditional airborne MIMO radar, which facilitates the clutter suppression and target detection. Simulation results verify the proposed STAP method.