
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON GEOSCIENCE AND REMOTE SENSING, VOL. 53, NO. 3, MARCH 2015 1615
MIMO SAR OFDM Chirp Waveform Diversity
Design With Random Matrix Modulation
Wen-Qin Wang, Member, IEEE
Abstract—Multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) synthetic
aperture radar (SAR) has received much attention due to its
interesting application potentials, but effective waveform diver-
sity design is still a technical challenge. In a MIMO SAR, each
antenna should transmit a unique waveform, orthogonal to the
waveforms transmitted by other antennas. The waveforms should
have a large time–bandwidth product, low cross-correlation in-
terferences, and a low peak–average ratio. To reach these aims,
this paper proposes an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing
(OFDM) chirp waveform with random matrix modulation. The
designed waveforms are time-delay and frequency-shift decor-
related. Referring to MIMO SAR high-resolution imaging, the
proposed OFDM chirp waveform parameters are optimally de-
signed, and their performances are analyzed through the am-
biguity function and range-Doppler-based MIMO SAR imaging
algorithm. Extensive and comparative simulation results show
that the waveforms have the superiorities of high range resolu-
tion, constant time domain and almost constant frequency-domain
modulus, large time–bandwidth product, low peak–average ratio,
and low time-delay and frequency-shift correlation peaks. More
importantly, this scheme can easily generate over three orthogonal
waveforms with a large time–bandwidth product.
Index Terms—MIMO SAR, multiple-input multiple-output
(MIMO), OFDM chirp waveform, orthogonal frequency division
multiplexing (OFDM), synthetic aperture radar (SAR), waveform
diversity.
I. INTRODUCTION
I
N RECENT years, multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO)
synthetic aperture radar (SAR) has gained popularity and
attracted much attention for its ability to enhance system perfor-
mance [1], [2]. In a MIMO SAR system, each antenna should
transmit a unique waveform, orthogonal to the waveforms
transmitted from other antennas so that their returns can be
effectively separated by a set of matched filters in the receiver.
MIMO SAR offers potentials to obtain more degrees of free-
dom and improve spatial resolution. Literature search shows
that numerous papers on MIMO radar and waveform diversity
design have been published (see [3]–[5] and the references
Manuscript received October 20, 2013; revised March 28, 2014, May 25,
2014, and July 19, 2014; accepted August 1, 2014. This work was supported
in part by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant
41101317, by the Program for New Century Excellent Talents in Universities
under Grant NCET-12-0095, by Sichuan Province Science Fund for Distin-
guished Young Scholars under Grant 2013JQ0003, and by the Fundamental
Research Fund for the Central Universities under Grant ZYGX2013J008.
The author is with the School of Communication and Information Engi-
neering, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TGRS.2014.2346478
therein), but relative little work on MIMO SAR has been
reported [6]–[16]. Note that the MIMO SAR considered in this
paper is different from general MIMO radars because aperture
synthesis with moving platform is employed in MIMO SAR but
stationary platform without aperture synthesis is often assumed
in the MIMO radar literature. Even less work on MIMO SAR
waveform diversity design can be found in the open literature
[17]–[22].
Existing waveform diversity designs considered in MIMO
radar often assume some prior knowledge for the impulse
response of the target and use the knowledge to optimize the
mutual information between the received signals and impulse
response of the target [23]. However, waveforms used in SAR
should have a large bandwidth so as to obtain a high range res-
olution. Another property is that a high average transmit power
is required for the transmitted waveforms. Thus, MIMO SAR
waveforms should have a large time–bandwidth product and a
low peak–average ratio. It is also important that the waveforms
have low cross-correlation interferences and thus have a good
peak-to-sidelobe ratio (PSLR) in the impulse response. That
is, they s hould be as far as orthogonal as possible. Note that,
since perfect waveform orthogonality cannot be implemented in
real-life hardware, the orthogonal used in this paper means
pseudo-orthogonal, namely, low cross-correlation interfer-
ences. Certainly, the waveforms should also have good ambi-
guity function characteristics such as range resolution, Doppler
resolution, and matched filtering sidelobe performance. For
these reasons, most of the existing waveforms are not suitable
for MIMO SAR and are difficult to be implemented in the
real-life scene. In particular, the waveforms designed with the
Barker codes have a low bandwidth efficiency. The Costas
pulse-based waveforms [24] have good range-Doppler prop-
erties, but each chip contains only one frequency. In [25], a
cyclic transmit waveform with quadratically phase shift keyed
Hadamard codes scrambled by a pseudonoise sequence is pro-
posed, but it i s not suitable for MIMO SAR imaging due to its
limited frequency bandwidth.
Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) is a
popular choice for common radar and communication signal
because it offers advantages such as robustness against multi-
path fading and relative simple synchronization [26], [27]. Time
and frequency synchronization is crucial in OFDM communi-
cation to preserve subcarrier orthogonality. For radar, however,
sensitivity to synchronization is beneficial since radar uses a
stored version of the transmitted signal and measures the time-
delay and frequency offsets between the transmitted signal and
received echo to determine a target’s range and closing velocity.
OFDM-like waveforms have been shown to be suitable f or
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