Open AccessUltracompact Monostatic MIMO Radar With Nonredundant Aperture
Author(s) -
Patrik Gruner,
Martin Geiger,
Christian Waldschmidt
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
ieee transactions on microwave theory and techniques
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.372
H-Index - 190
eISSN - 1557-9670
pISSN - 0018-9480
DOI - 10.1109/tmtt.2020.3006055
Subject(s) - fields, waves and electromagnetics
Monostatic multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) radar configurations using the same antenna array for transmission and reception inherently lead to redundant virtual antenna positions within the virtual MIMO aperture. This article presents a new method for designing monostatic MIMO radars where this disadvantage may be overcome and nonredundant virtual arrays are yielded by exploiting biomimetic antenna arrays (BMAAs). The new concept of biomimetic MIMO is introduced and thoroughly investigated in this article. Its working principle is compared with conventional monostatic MIMO and verified by radar measurements. The new approach is intended to improve the angle estimation capability of, in particular, small radar systems. Therefore, the concept is applied to an ultracompact twochannel radar monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC) with fully integrated antennas for range and angle measurements in the 150-GHz range. The chip features two monostatic transmit-receive (TRX) channels with an antenna spacing of λ/4 and occupies less than 3 mm2 of space. By applying biomimetic MIMO, a virtual aperture consisting of four unique antenna positions and an equivalent total size of around 1.5λ is achieved.