Antenna placement; Array configuration; Beampattern optimization; MIMO radar; Planar array; Sparse array; Antenna array design; Array configurations; Beam pattern; Hardware cost; Planar arrays; Side-lobe suppression; Sparse arrays; Two-dimensional; Control and Systems Engineering; Software; Signal Processing; Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition; Electrical and Electronic Engineering
Abstract :
[en] Emerging millimeter-wave (mmWave) MIMO radars combine the benefits of large bandwidth available at mmWave frequencies with the spatial diversity provided by MIMO architectures, significantly enhancing radar capabilities for automotive, surveillance, and imaging applications. However, deploying large numbers of antennas and transceivers at these high frequencies substantially increases chip complexity and hardware costs. In this paper, we address the design of sparse two-dimensional (2D) antenna arrays that retain the desirable beampattern characteristics of fully populated arrays – namely, narrow mainlobes and low sidelobes – while significantly reducing the required number of antenna elements. We formulate the sparse array design problem as a beampattern matching optimization, which selects optimal subsets of transmit and receive antenna positions from an initial dense grid. To efficiently solve this challenging nonconvex optimization problem, we introduce an iterative algorithm combining Majorization–Minimization (MM) and Alternating Optimization (AO) techniques. We provide theoretical guarantees for convergence to at least a local optimum. Additionally, we propose a weighting vector optimization step to further enhance sidelobe suppression. Numerical simulations confirm that the proposed method maintains angular resolution and Sidelobe Levels (SLLs) comparable to those of full arrays, while substantially reducing hardware complexity and cost. Performance comparisons against existing methods demonstrate notable improvements in sidelobe suppression and computational efficiency without compromising processing gain.
Disciplines :
Electrical & electronics engineering
Author, co-author :
Sedighi, Saeid ; Valeo Schalter und Sensoren GmbH, Germany
Karimian-Sichani, Nazila ; Department of Information Engineering, University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy
M.R., Bhavani Shankar; Interdisciplinary Centre for Security, Reliability and Trust (SnT), University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg
Greco, Maria S.; Department of Information Engineering, University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy
Gini, Fulvio ; Department of Information Engineering, University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy
OTTERSTEN, Björn ; University of Luxembourg > Interdisciplinary Centre for Security, Reliability and Trust (SNT) > PI Ottersten
External co-authors :
yes
Language :
English
Title :
Optimized sparse 2D antenna array design via beampattern matching
University of Pisa Ministero dell'Università e della Ricerca Ministero dell’Istruzione, dell’Università e della Ricerca FNR
Funding text :
This work has been partially supported by the Luxembourg National Research Fund (FNR) under the projects C20/IS/14799710/SENCOM, INTER/MOBILITY/2023/IS/18014377/MCR, and the Italian Ministry of Education and Research (MUR) in the framework of the FoReLab project (Departments of Excellence).
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