On the Statistical Resolution Limit (SRL) for Time-Reversal based MIMO radar

Abstract : In the single-input multiple-output radar, the system transmits scaled (coherent) versions of a single waveform. The multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) radar uses multiple antennas to simultaneously transmit several non-coherent waveforms and exploits multiple antennas to receive the reflected signals (echoes). This diversity in term of waveform coding allows to transmit orthogonal waveforms which enables the MIMO radar superiority in several fundamental aspects, including: improved parameter identifiability and estimation and much enhanced flexibility for transmit beam-pattern design. The context of this work is the co-located MIMO radar where the transmit and the receive arrays are close in space. In this paper, we provide a theoretical performance analysis to compare two configurations of MIMO radar: Conventional configuration and Time Reversal (TR) configuration in term of Statistical Resolution Limit (SRL). This study provides new insights on the performance gain of the TR scheme which is discussed and illustrated by appropriate simulation results depending on the receive noise level.