Radar Cross Section Characterization of Frequency Diverse Array Radar

Abstract

In this article, we develop a frequency diverse array (FDA) radar echo signal model for general complex targets including dumbbell and multiple scatterers. Moreover, we expose the reflectivity characterization, i.e., the radar cross section (RCS) for an FDA radar as a function of fast time, frequency offset, and angle. Note that, previously the RCS is not time dependent for the conventional radars including phased-array radar. Since statistical analysis is not, merely, enough for a fair FDA radar RCS investigations, we further derive the probability distribution function (PDF) of an FDA radar-based RCS by exploiting the statistical distribution characterization with randomly distributed scatterers. Finally, it has been proved that the PDF of an FDA radar RCS is related to both time and frequency offsets. All conclusions are validated by numerical results.