Design of Antenna Array Configurations for Space-Time Adaptive Processing

It is known that the output performance of a conventional adaptive antenna system is greatly influenced by its antenna array configuration. Such a conclusion holds true to space-time adaptive processing (STAP) systems of mobile communications, where receiving signals consist of the superimposed multipath rays with delay spread and angle spread. It is considered that the associated system performance measures, e.g., the minimum mean square error (MMSE) of STAP systems, could not be used to the design of the employed antenna array configuration due to involving a few nuisance parameters that make the design much more complicated or impossible. In this paper, we first derive an upper bound of the residual error power of STAP systems under the minimum mean square error (MMSE) criterion. Then, we establish a relationship between the bound and the space-time channel autoand cross-correlation functions. According to the relationship, a criterion function that jointly maximizes the main beam and minimizes the sidelobe of the generalized space-time channel correlation waveform is obtained for the design of the array configuration under a given statistical signal environment. Numerical simulation results show the effectiveness of the proposed design method.