Advancements in waveform design for MIMO radar and urban multipath exploitation radar

The use of multiple-input and multiple-output (MIMO) platforms in radar applications is a new technology that employs advanced signal processing algorithms to improve target detection and identification performance. The signal processing algorithms proposed in this dissertation result in improving tracking performance by adaptively designing the MIMO transmitter waveforms and by scheduling the MIMO radar sensors. Specifically, there are three main contributions pertaining to tracking using a large number of MIMO radars: (a) adaptive waveform design algorithm to minimize tracking mean-squared error (MSE) for collocated transmitters; (b) scheduling algorithm to optimally configure transmitters by minimizing tracking MSE based on resource constraints; and (c) combined adaptive waveform and transmitter configuration optimization algorithm to further improve tracking performance. The effectiveness of combining MIMO radar technology with adaptive waveform design and sensor scheduling is demonstrated using simulations.;Recently, multipath exploitation radar was considered to exploit the benefits of extracting target information from multipath returns and enhance radar coverage and scene visibility in urban terrain, especially in the absence of direct line-of-sight paths. In this dissertation, a tracking algorithm is proposed to optimize multipath returns by dynamically selecting the parameters of the transmitted waveform to minimize the predicted tracking MSE. The algorithm is extended to the more realistic case of measurements with high clutter using an interactive multiple model probabilistic data association filter. The proposed approaches are demonstrated in a realistic urban environment by varying the regions of obscuration, the number of multipath bounces, and the level of noise in the measurements.;In conclusion, a waveform agile MIMO sensing system is integrated with multipath exploitation radar and is shown to achieve maximum performance improvements in target tracking.