Minimax robust M-beamforming for radar array with antenna switching

Abstract

We address the problem of estimating the movement parameters in non-Gaussian noise environments using an active radar array with antenna switching. The switch radar system is composed of a single transmitter, M receiving antennas, and a single receiving channel. We propose a new three-dimensional (3-D) power function which is exploited for beamforming and estimation of parameters of moving targets. Maximum peaks of this power function are used for estimation of the angle, velocity, and range of multiple moving targets. The robustness of the beamforming and the estimates is enabled by using Huber's M-estimates of the echoed transmitted radar signal. Two robust beamformers are studied: robust Huber and robust approximate median. Simulation demonstrates that the proposed robust beamformers provide a decreased sensitivity of the estimates with respect to noise components having heavy-tailed distributions.