Applications of MIMO Technique for Aerospace Remote Sensing

Abstract

Inspired by recent advances in multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) radar, this paper introduces the MIMO synthetic aperture radar (SAR) concept. This concept differs substantially from current SARs in which closely spaced antenna arrays are used. With closely spaced antenna elements, it is possible to coherent a beam toward a direction in space and to realize a coherent processing gain. However, these systems are prone to severe target fading, and hence they may suffer considerable performance degradation. The fundamental difference between MIMO SAR and other SAR is that the latter seek to maximize the coherent processing gain, while MIMO SAR capitalizes on the diversity of target scattering to improve radar performance. The superiority of MIMO SAR in many aspects over the conventional SAR, e.g., high resolution, good sensitivity, and countermining target fluctuations is investigated. It is shown that, the use of MIMO SAR leads to solutions that previously thought to be out of reach for remote sensing scientists and customers.