Resolution Performance Analysis of Multiple-transmitter Multiple-receiver Multistatic Radar System

Detection of multiple unresolved targets is a frontier topic and pressing task in radar technology field. Considering a multistatic radar system with multiple transmitters and multiple receivers, ambiguity functions for spatially coherent and incoherent multistatic radar were analyzed, 3-dB contour area of ambiguity function was used as a measurement to compare target range resolution performance of different sensor geometrical configuration and waveform selection with one-transmitter multiple-receiver multistatic radar, relevant simulation results were presented. The results show that spatial coherence information enhances target range resolution performance of multistatic radar system, although multiple-transmitter multiple-receiver multistatic radar system increases system complexity, if improperly configured, the target resolution performance may be not superior to that of one-transmitter multiple-receiver multistatic radar system. The conclusion of this paper can be used in the analysis of multistatic radar detection performance of multiple unresolved targets, and will supply the sensor placement and waveform design of multistatic radar with reference.