A Cooperative MIMO Radar Network Using Highly Integrated FMCW Radar Sensors

In this paper, an incoherent radar network based on integrated radar sensors is presented. It consists of radar sensor nodes with independently generated frequency-modulated continuous wave-modulated transmit signals, performing both monostatic and bistatic distance measurements. An architecture to operate such a cooperative bistatic network is introduced and an optimal parameterization of the system is presented. Several nonidealities of frequency synthesizers, that are important for such cooperative radar networks, are discussed and their influence on system performance is evaluated. A prototype of the cooperative bistatic network has been realized using highly integrated radar sensors at 122 GHz. Radar measurements using the prototype prove the feasibility and potential of the network approach. The complete signal processing chain is presented, including an adapted multilateration algorithm for target position estimation using all measured distances.