A Decoupling-based Approach for Signature Estimation of Wideband XL MIMO-FMCW Radars

TL;DR

This paper introduces a decoupling-based method for accurate target detection and parameter estimation in wideband XL MIMO FMCW radars, effectively addressing the challenges posed by the spatial wideband effect and target overlap.

Contribution

It proposes a novel decoupling framework that reformulates joint 2D range-angle estimation into sequential 1D problems using super-resolution techniques, improving target resolution.

Findings

Accurately detects multiple targets in simulations.

Successfully resolves overlapping target responses.

Outperforms conventional Fourier and clustering methods.

Abstract

Modern radars employing wideband signals and extremely large (XL) multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) arrays can significantly improve range and angular resolution. However, when large bandwidth and array aperture are used simultaneously, the spatial delay across the array becomes comparable to the radar range resolution, leading to the spatial wideband effect (SWE). The SWE introduces several distortions including range migration (range squint), beam squint, and range-angle coupling (RAC), which spread the target response in the range-angle domain and may cause physically separated targets to overlap and mask each other. In this work, we propose a decoupling-based target detection and parameter estimation framework for MIMO frequency modulated continuous wave (FMCW) radar. The proposed method reformulates the joint range-angle estimation problem as a decoupled sequential frequency estimation problem, where the two-dimensional (2D) estimation is carried out through successive one-dimensional (1D) super-resolution estimations. Specifically, we employ orthogonal matching pursuit (OMP) to perform sparse recovery-based range and angle estimation with high resolution. The proposed decoupling strategy is further extended to spatial wideband XL-MIMO FMCW radar systems, enabling reliable detection and separation of targets even when their responses overlap due to severe RAC. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed approach accurately detects multiple targets and successfully resolves overlapping target responses in the presence of SWE, outperforming conventional Fourier transform and clustering-based methods.