Evaluation of Covariance Matrix in Distributed MIMO Radar

It has been shown that the detection performance can be improved by exploiting the covariance matrix of the channel vector in the distributed MIMO radar. In this paper, we firstly introduce a system model in which the target is modeled as the sum of a finite number of independent scatterers without limitation on transmitter-receiver configurations. Using this system model, we make a detailed analysis of the covariance matrix under various target RCS models. The formula to calculate the elements of covariance matrix for the MIMO radar with arbitrary transmitter-target-receiver collocations is derived. We also propose an approach to evaluate correlations between channels based on the local maximum potential detection and the received signals. This approach makes it possible to predict the detection performance for the actual distributed MIMO radar. The theoretical probability of detection for this approach is developed and validated by simulation.