Blind velocities mitigation for MIMO GMTI radar with Doppler division multiple access waveforms

Multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) radar with multiple transmitters and multiple receivers can achieve a larger virtual antenna array and more system degrees of freedom; thus applying it to ground moving target indication (GMTI) radar can improve the performance of GMTI. Doppler division multiple access (DDMA) waveforms are approximately orthogonal providing good minimum detectable velocity (MDV) performance. However, in such DDMA systems, a sufficient pulse repetition frequency (PRF) design freedom is required. Furthermore, these waveforms suffer from blind velocities which are serious problems, especially in radar systems with high carrier frequency or low PRF. This paper analyses the blind velocities problem and show that blind velocities are relative to variation of the PRF and/or the carrier frequency. Variable PRF techniques are widely used in conventional GMTI radar including multiple PRFs and variable pulse repetition intervals (PRI). Combined with the characteristics of the DDMA MIMO GMTI radar, this paper proposed two methods to mitigate blind velocities: “multi-PRF DDMA” which employs multiple PRFs over successive coherent processing intervals, and “PRI-dithered DDMA” which employs nonuniform sampling by dithered PRI in slow time. Simulation results demonstrate that both the methods are effective ways to mitigate blind velocities in DDMA MIMO GMTI radar systems.