The purpose of this chapter is to introduce geometric aspects of waveform diversity in terms of bistatic ambiguity function (BAF) and Cramér-Rao lower bounds (CRLBs). These aspects are fundamental in the choice of bistatic channel or set of channels in multistatic systems for target kinematic parameters estimation. Exploiting the relation between the ambiguity function (AF) and the CRLB, it is possible to calculate the bistatic CRLBs of target range and velocity of each transmitter-receiver (TX-RX) pair as a function of the target kinematic parameters and to provide a local measure of the estimation accuracy of these parameters. The information gained through the calculation of the bistatic CRLBs can also be used to evaluate the performance of each channel of the multistatic system and therefore for the choice, along the trajectory of the target, of the optimum TX-RX pair (or a set of bistatic channels) for data fusion and target tracking. This chapter proposes an algorithm that specifies what channels should be discarded and what channels should be considered during the fusion process. The results shown here can also be used [1] to calculate the weighting coefficients for combining the signals arising from the sensors of the network, highlighting those sensors exhibiting the best performance and discarding those channels with the worst one.

Inspec keywords: sensor fusion; radar receivers; radar tracking; radar transmitters; target tracking; parameter estimation

Other keywords: optimal channel selection; ambiguity function; data fusion; bistatic ambiguity function; multistatic radar system; target tracking; channel selection; BAF; bistatic channel; sensors; waveform diversity; optimum TX-RX pair; Cramér-Rao lower bounds; performance evaluation; target kinematic parameters estimation; fusion process; CRLB; transmitter-receiver pair

Subjects: Signal processing and detection; Radar equipment, systems and applications