Joint DOD DOA and Polarization Estimation for MIMO Radar with Electromagnetic Vector Sensors

The issue of joint estimation of Direction Of Departure (DOD), Direction Of Arrive (DOA) and polarization for MIMO radar with electromagnetic vector sensors is investigated. A novel bistatic MIMO radar system with multiple transmit sensors and multiple receive electromagnetic vector sensors is proposed. Three joint parameter estimation algorithms, which are, respectively, termed as four-dimensional MUSIC, ESPRIT and iterative one-dimensional (1D) MUSIC, are presented. The iterative 1D-MUSIC algorithm first uses the internal structure of the vector sensors to obtain a set of initialize DOA estimates, and then two 1D-MUSIC searches are employed to get the DOD and DOA estimates in succession, finally a polarization ESPRIT algorithm is proposed for polarization estimation. The iterative 1D-MUSIC algorithm is suitable for irregular array geometry, imposes less constraints on the receive array geometries, and requires no two-dimensional or high-dimensional searching. Moreover, this algorithm can improve the DOA estimation performance by extending the array aperture. The CRB for the issue under consideration is also derived. Simulations show that the estimation accuracy of the iterative 1D-MUSIC algorithm is closest to the CRB, compared with those of the previous two algorithms.