Waveform optimization for MIMO-STAP to improve the detection performance

In this letter, we address the problem of waveform optimization for multi-input multi-output (MIMO) space-time adaptive processing (STAP) in the presence of colored Gaussian disturbance. A novel diagonal loading (DL) based method is proposed to optimize the waveform covariance matrix (WCM) for maximizing the output signal-interference-noise ratio (SINR) of MIMO-STAP such that the detection performance can be maximized. The resultant nonlinear optimization problem is reformulated as a semidefinite programming (SDP) one, which can be solved very efficiently. Simulation results show that the output SINR of MIMO-STAP can be improved considerably by the proposed method, as compared to that of uncorrelated waveforms.

► The detection performance of MIMO-STAP is improved by waveform optimization.
► The DL-based method is proposed to handle the waveform optimization problem.
► The waveform optimization problem can be reformulated as an SDP.
► Robust waveform optimization will be explored in the future.