Range-Ambiguous Clutter Separation via Reweighted Atomic Norm Minimization With EPC-MIMO Radar

The existence of range ambiguity and range dependence will seriously deteriorate the performance of space-time adaptive processing (STAP). In this regard, an adaptive range-ambiguous clutter separation method suitable for the element-pulse coding (EPC)-multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) radar is developed in this letter. By introducing the EPC factor in both transmit elements and pulses, the clutter located in different range-ambiguous regions can be distinguished in the transmit spatial frequency dimension. Particularly, to ensure the separated performance of range-ambiguous clutter, the EPC factor is designed. Moreover, an approach on the basis of reweighted atomic norm minimization (RANM) is developed to separate the range-ambiguous clutter, leveraging the transmit spatial frequencies of clutter located in various range ambiguity areas. Furthermore, after clutter separation, the clutter is canceled via STAP individually in each range ambiguous region. A series of simulation results validate the efficacy of the proposed approach.