Phased-MIMO Antenna Arrays of Radar System in Detection Performance

The use of multiple antennas in radar systems that establish antenna arrays in transmitter (Tx) and receiver (Rx) has become of current interest. The Phased-MIMO radar (PMIMO) combines simultaneously the high coherent directional gain capabilities of the phased array (PA) radar and the high multi-target detection capabilities of the MIMO radar. This can be realized because of the use of overlapped subarrays in Tx so that it improves the detection performance flexibly such as the detection and false alarm probabilities. In this paper, the detection performance of this radar for the optimal detector has been derived and validated and then compared with the performance of other multi-antenna radars based on the effect of the threshold, SNR, and the number of subarrays in Tx. The results of the evaluation show that the PMIMO radar is more flexible through its subarrays variations than the PA and the MIMO radars for its performance capabilities under various target environmental conditions. For example, to achieve a detection performance that fulfil the tolerance of a certain threshold, which is above 35, the resulting false alarm probability is above 10e-4 with a detection probability of more than 99%.