MIRA-CLE, an experimental MIMO radar in Ka band

The experimental short range broadband surveillance radar system MIRA-CLE in Ka band is described in this paper. Based on the MIMO principle, the modular system consists of 16 transmitters and 16 receivers being arranged and excited in such a manner, that its cross range resolution is two times better compared to a 256 element conventional phased array. To improve the data acquisition rate for fast changing scenes, the waveform diversity method is applied. This means, each transmitter simultaneously transmits its individual modulated code being part of a set of optimized orthogonal codes suitable for MIMO radar. The signal allocation to the individual transmit elements and the determination of the regularly spaced virtual RX phase centres are derived by signal processing. The technology of MIRA-CLE key components within the RF frontend is presented.