2014 International Radar Conference
Analysis and Comparison of MIMO Radar
Waveforms
Hongbo Sun, Frederic Brigui
Temasek Laboratories@NTU
Nanyang Technological University
RTP-BX-09, 50 Nanyang Drive, Singapore 637553
Email: {ehbsun; frederic.brigui}@ntu.edu.sg
Abstract—Choosing a proper waveform is a critical task for
the implementation of multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO)
radars. In addition to the general requirements for radar
waveforms such as good resolution, low sidelobes, etc, MIMO
radar waveforms also should possess good orthogonality. In this
paper we give a brief overview of MIMO radar waveforms,
which are classified into four categories: (1) time division
multiple access (TDMA), (2) frequency division multiple access
(FDMA), (3) Doppler division multiple access (DDMA), and (4)
code division multiple access (CDMA). A special circulating
MIMO waveform is also addressed The properties as well as
application limitations of different waveforms are analyzed and
compared. Some simulations results are also presented to
illustrate the respective performance of different waveforms.
Keywords—Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) radar,
waveform design, cross-correlation
I. INTRODUCTION
Benefiting from its special architecture and operating
mode, multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) radar offers a
lot of advantages and potentials for improving the target
detection and parameters estimation performances. Based on
the different geometrical configurations, two types of MIMO
radar systems have been proposed and investigated over the
past decade, namely, MIMO radar with colocated antennas
(also known as coherent MIMO radar) [1] and MIMO radar
with widely separated antennas (also known as statistical
MIMO radar) [2]. References [1] and [2] extensively review
the superior performance of coherent and statistical MIMO
radars for various applications. However, note that the
analyses in both [1] and [2] (as well as many other literatures)
are based on the assumption of ideal orthogonal waveform,
and the effects for the practical non-ideal orthogonal
waveforms were not addressed.
Choosing a proper waveform is a critical task for the
implementation of practical MIMO radar systems. In addition
to the general requirements for radar waveforms such as good
resolution, low sidelobes, etc, MIMO radar waveforms also
should possess good orthogonality. Strictly speaking, the ideal
orthogonal MIMO waveform does not exist. Many literatures
proposed some quasi-orthogonal waveforms for MIMO radar
applications. However, most literatures just focus on one or a
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Marc Lesturgie
Department of Electromagnetism and Radar
ONERA - The French Aerospace Lab
Chemin de la Huniere, 91761 Palaiseau, France
Email: marc.lesturgie@onera.fr
few certain specific types of modulations and fail to compare
it with other types of waveforms. There are, to the authors'
best knowledge, very few literature (e.g., [3]) giving an
comprehensive evaluation and comparison for all types of
MIMO radar waveforms.
In this paper we try to give a brief overview of MIMO
radar waveforms, which are classified into four categories: (1)
time division multiple access (TDMA), (2) frequency division
multiple access (FDMA), (3) Doppler division multiple access
(DDMA), and (4) code division multiple access (CDMA).
Besides these, a special circulating MIMO waveform is also
addressed. We would highlight that "there is no free lunch" is
also applicable for choosing MIMO radar waveform. We have
to bear with some losses (e.g., transmit power, Doppler
ambiguity, range/Doppler sidelobes, etc) when adopting a
particular waveform. In the following sections, the properties
as well as application limitations of various waveforms are
analyzed and compared. Simulations results are also presented
to illustrate the respective performance of waveforms.
II. TDMA MIMO Waveform
First we consider the MIMO radar waveforms whose
orthogonality are implemented by time division multiple
access (TDMA) techniques.
A. Alternative Transmitting
For a MIMO radar, to easily separate the signals
transmitted by different transmit antennas, the most intuitive
and simple way is alternative transmitting, i.e., each
transmitter transmits its own waveform alternatively, and there
is no overlap between any two transmissions. This alternative
transmitting TDMA approach can achieve ideal orthogonality
and the conventional radar waveform (e..g, chirp waveform)
can be directly used in all transmitters. An application
example of such approach can be found in [4], where the
transmit antennas are switched from pulse to pulse and receive
antennas receive in parallel.
Though this alternative transmitting TDMA approach is
easy to use, it is evident that the transmission capabilities of
all transmit antennas are not fully utilized. Compared with the
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MIMO radar in which all transmit antennas can transmit
simultaneously, this alternative transmitting approach suffers
from a significant loss of transmit power, which will give a
much shorter target detection range.
B. Time-Staggered LFMCW Waveform
Another type of MIMO waveform which also makes use of
TDMA is the time-staggered linear frequency modulation
continuous wave (LFMCW) waveform. Assuming there are 8
transmit antennas, this time-staggered LFMCW waveform set
comprises 8 copies of a standard LFMCW radar waveform.
Each copy of the waveform is staggered in time by 1/8 of the
waveform repetition interval. Each member of the waveform
set is transmitted from a different element in the transmit
antenna array. Fig. 1 illustrates the this time-staggered
LFMCW waveform, where the lines with the different colors
denote the waveform transmitted by different transmit
antennas. Such waveform has been successfully implemented
in an Australian MIMO high-frequency over-the-horizon (HF-
OTH) radar [5].
Fig. 1: Illustration of time-staggered LFMCW waveform
Different from the previous alternative transmitting
approach, this time-staggered LFMCW waveform allows all
transmit antennas to transmit signals simultaneously, and thus
fully utilizes the transmission capabilities of all transmit
antennas. In addition, since the waveforms transmitted by
different antennas can be separated in time delays (i.e.,
TDMA) and the unwanted cross interferences from other
transmit antennas can be removed in the subsequent filtering,
this time-staggered LFMCW waveform possesses very good
orthogonality. However, Note that this time-staggered
LFMCW waveform is only applicable for CW radars with
enough pulse repetition frequency (PRF) tolerance, e.g., HF
radar. It will be difficult to apply it in normal microwave
radars due to the tight constrains between unambiguous range
and PRF.
III. FDMA MIMO Waveform
Another technique to achieve the orthogonality of MIMO
radar waveform is the frequency division multiple access
(FDMA), i.e., the signals transmitted by different antennas are
modulated by different carrier frequencies. Such FDMA
technique is also called orthogonal spatial-frequency coding in
some literatures, which can be implemented in single pulse
(fast-time) or a pulse train (slow-time).
A. Fast-Time FDMA MIMO Waveform
We assume there are 4 transmit antennas, each antenna
transmit a chirp signal and the frequency gap between two
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adjacent antennas is equal to the signal bandwidth transmitted
by each antenna. In the waveform illustrated in Fig. 2, the
signals transmitted by a certain antenna remain unchanged in
different pulses. The orthogonality is implemented in single
pulse, i.e., fast time. However, due to the linear relationship
between the carrier frequency and the index of antenna
element, a strong range-azimuth coupling will occur after
MIMO beamforming. Fig. 3 depicts the simulated range-angle
ambiguity function for the waveform in Fig. 2, where 4
transmit antennas (with half-wavelength inter-element
spacing) are assumed and each antenna transmits a chirp
signal with 100kHz bandwidth (without overlapping). A target
is assumed at 10km and 90 degrees (i.e., array boresight). We
can find that the range-azimuth coupling is very strong, and
thus this waveform cannot be used in practical applications.
Fig. 2: Illustration of fast-time regular FDMA MIMO waveform
Fig. 3: Range-angle ambiguity function of fast-time regular FDMA MIMO
waveform
One method to remove this coupling is randomizing the
distribution of carrier frequencies across transmit antennas.
This method has been used in the RIAS system developed by
ONERA, France, in late 1980s [6]. Fig. 5 depicts the
simulated range-angle ambiguity function for the randomized
FDMA waveform shown in Fig. 4. It can be seen that the
range-angle coupling is removed, but with the cost of high
sidelobe level. To have better sidelobe performance, more
number of transmit antennas are desired (for example, the
French RIAS system has 25 transmit antennas) and some
optimization techniques can be applied to set the carrier
frequency distribution over transmit antennas and further
reduce the sidelobe level. If the number of transmit antennas
are limited (e.g., 2 or 4), this randomization technique cannot
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 2014 International Radar Conference
be implemented and the fast-time spatial-frequency coding
waveform cannot be used.
Fig. 4: Illustration of fast-time randomized FDMA MIMO waveform
Fig. 5: Range-angle ambiguity function of fast-time randomized FDMA
MIMO waveform
B. Slow-Time FDMA MIMO Waveform
The FDMA (spatial-frequency coding) can also be
implemented over a pulse train, i.e., in slow time. For this
case, each antenna transmits different carrier frequencies at
different pulses, as illustrated in Fig. 6.
Fig. 6: Illustration of slow-time FDMA MIMO waveform
In such slow-time FDMA waveform, the degrees of
freedom over multiple pulses can be used for optimization,
and the sidelobe level can be reduced, even when the MIMO
radar just has a few transmit antennas. This slow-time FDMA
MIMO waveform has been investigated in a number of
literatures (e.g., [7]), and the readers can refer to them for
more detailed results.
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IV. DDMA and HADAMARD Coding MIMO Waveform
A. DDMA MIMO Waveform
Doppler division multiple access (DDMA) MIMO
waveform means the centre frequencies of the signals
transmitted by different transmit antennas are shifted slightly
so that these signals can be separated in Doppler domain. The
frequency gap between two adjacent antennas should satisfy
two requirements: (i) it should be equal or larger than 1/ Tp ,
where Tp is the pulse width of transmit signal, to satisfy the
orthogonal requirement; (ii) it should be equal or larger than
two times of the possible Doppler shift caused by the fastest
moving target to guarantee the signals transmitted by different
antennas can be separated in Doppler domain. The DDMA
MIMO waveform can achieve very good performance. Its
range-angle ambiguity function is plotted in Fig. 7, also with 4
transmit antennas (half-wavelength inter-element spacing) and
each antenna transmits 400kHz bandwidth chirp signal. Ref
[8] introduces the experimental results of an airborne MIMO
GMTI radar, in which the DDMA MIMO waveform is
adopted.
Fig. 7: Range-angle ambiguity function of DDMA MIMO waveform
However, similar to the previous time-staggered LFMCW
waveform, this DDMA waveform also requires that the radar
system must have enough PRF tolerance. The radar PRF must
be equal or larger than 2Ne times of the maximum Doppler
frequency of target, where Ne is the number of transmit
antennas. Thus, the DDMA waveform can only be applied in
low frequency radars (e.g., HF radars) or the radars for short-
range detection (e.g., the airborne GMTI radar in [8]).
B. Hadamard Coding Waveform
Actually the Hadamard coding waveform is a kind of
slow-time code division multiple access (CDMA) waveform.
But it has the same application features as the DDMA
waveform. So we list it in this section together with DDMA
waveform.
We still assume there are 4 transmit antennas, and each
antenna transmits a chirp signal with 400kHz bandwidth. The
initial phases of 4 consecutive pulse signals transmitted by 4
antennas are modulated by a 4-by-4 Hadamard matrix
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 2014 International Radar Conference
⎡1 1 1 1 ⎤
⎢1 −1 1 −1⎥
C=⎢ ⎥ decoding) can be separated with the Doppler processing.
⎢1 1 −1 −1⎥
⎢ ⎥
⎣1 −1 −1 1 ⎦
The instantaneous transmit pattern of this array is depicted in
Fig. 8, where each pattern corresponds to one column
sequence in the above Hadamard matrix. On average, the
transmit pattern is omni-directional.
Fig. 8: Instantaneous transmit pattern of Hadamard coding MIMO waveform
At the receive side, by multiplying the Hadamard matrix to
the received signal, the signals from 4 consecutive pulses can
be converted to the signals from 4 transmit antennas, i.e., the
waveform decoding is performed. However, this processing
also causes that the unambiguous PRF is reduced by 4 times.
This property is similar to that in DDMA MIMO waveform. In
general, the Hadamard coding waveform has almost the same
performance as the DDMA waveform (the range-angle map is
the same as that shown in Fig. 7). However, it should be noted
that the Doppler frequency of fast-moving target may slightly
affect the beamforming of Hadamard coding waveform.
Relatively, the DDMA waveform will be much more robust
for this case.
V. CDMA MIMO WAVEFORM
Code division multiple access (CDMA) MIMO waveform
means the signals transmitted by different antennas are
modulated by different series of orthogonal phase codes, either
in fast time or in slow time, so that these signals can be
separated/decoded in radar receiver. Since the ideal orthogonal
code sequence with good auto- and cross-correlation
properties does not exist, the CDMA MIMO waveforms can
just approximately satisfy the orthogonality requirement.
A. Fast-Time CDMA MIMO Waveform
In fast-time CDMA waveform, the phase codes are
modulated by the carrier signal within each pulse. Thus, the
code length N is directly linked to the waveform bandwidth:
N = B ⋅ T p , where Tp is the pulse width. On the other hand,
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the phase codes remain the same for different pulses, which
allows that the pulse compression (also the waveform
Therefore the computation load of fast-time phase coding
waveform is quite low (similar to the conventional pulse-
Doppler radar waveform). The drawback is that its range
sidelobe will be high, depending on the cross-correlation
property of the code sequence. We take the cyclic algorithm
new (CAN) MIMO code as an example [9]. Fig. 9 depicts the
corresponding range-angle ambiguity function. Again, 4
transmit antennas (half-wavelength inter-element spacing) are
assumed and each antenna transmits the CAN coded pulse
signal with 400kHz bandwidth (code length is equal to 80).
Fig. 9: Range-angle ambiguity function of fast-time CDMA MIMO waveform
B. Slow-Time CDMA MIMO Waveform
In slow-time CDMA waveform, the phase codes are used
to modulate the initial phases of different pulses. The
waveform bandwidth is still determined by the signal
transmitted in each pulse, e.g., chirp signal. Similarly, the
range sidelobe of slow-time phase coding waveform is also
determined by the signal transmitted in each pulse, which can
be very low. However, the Doppler sidelobe will be high,
depending on the cross-correlation property of the code
sequence. The Doppler-angle ambiguity function of the slow-
time CDMA MIMO waveform will have the same
characteristics as the range-angle ambiguity function of the
fast-time CDMA MIMO waveform (as shown in Fig. 9), if the
same phase codes are used.
There is another drawback for the slow-time CDMA
waveform. Since the code sequence is modulated over many
pulses, its orthogonality will be affected by the Doppler
frequency of moving target. Thus, the waveform decoding
(also pulse compression) cannot be separated with the Doppler
processing. In another word, they must be implemented as a
joint processing, whose computational load is much larger
than that of the fast-time CDMA waveform.
VI. Circulating MIMO Waveform
At last we introduce a special MIMO waveform -
circulating MIMO waveform. The circulating MIMO
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waveform means the waveform transmitted by each antenna is

a time-circulating copy of the same signal, where the
circulating step should be equal to 1/B, where the B is the
waveform bandwidth, to satisfy the orthogonality requirement.
The circulating MIMO waveform has very special properties
and features, much different from the previous ones. We take
the circulating LFM MIMO waveform as an example, which
is illustrated in Fig. 10. The lines with different colors denote
the waveforms transmitted by different antennas.

(a)

Fig. 10: Illustration of circulating LFM MIMO waveform

The auto- and cross-correlations of the circulating LFM

MIMO waveform is plotted in Fig. 11. We can see that there is
a prominent peak in all cross-correlation results, which is just
slightly shifted (equal to 1/B) with each other in time delay.
After MIMO beamforming, these peaks will merge into one
wider peak, which causes the degradation of range resolution
(by Ne times). However, the good thing is, ultra-low range
sidelobe can be achieved. Fig. 12(a) depicts the range-angle
ambiguity function of the circulating LFM MIMO waveform,
also for 4 antennas with half-wavelength inter-element spacing
and each antenna transmits a circulating copy of LFM signal.
Fig. 12(b) depicts the range and angle cuts of the target
response, which is at 10km and 90 degrees. Comparing Fig. 12
with Fig. 7 and Fig. 9, we can find the degraded range
resolution and very low range sidelobes. The performance
degradation in angle resolution is not very significant.
(b)
Fig. 12: Range-angle ambiguity function of circulating LFM MIMO
waveform (a) Range-angle map; (b) Range and angle cuts in the target cell
To further evaluate the performance of circulating LFM
waveform, we consider a monostatic MIMO radar with 4
transmit antennas and 4 receive antennas. The transmit
element spacing is 2 wavelengths and the receive element
spacing is half wavelength. we still assume a point target at
10km and 90 degrees (array boresight). Fig. 13(a) shows the
range-angle map of the target when using circulating LFM
waveform, and Fig. 13(b) shows the range and angle cuts of
target peak. For comparison, Fig. 14 shows the results when
fast-time CDMA waveform is used. From the authors' point of
view, the low range sidelobe performance of circulating
MIMO waveforms is very attractive and useful for practical
applications. The loss of range resolution can be compensated
by transmitting a larger bandwidth.

Fig. 11: Auto- and cross-correlations of the circulating LFM MIMO

waveform
(a)

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 2014 International Radar Conference

TABLE I. SUMMARY OF MIMO WAVEFORMS

For which
Waveforms What we get What we paid for
applications
TDMA - • Good orthogonality • Loss of transmit Low power radar
Alternative power for short-range
• Low range / Doppler
transmitting detection
sidelobe
TDMA - • Good orthogonality • Limited Doppler Low-frequency
Staggered unambiguity radar
• Low range / Doppler
LFMCW range
sidelobe
Fast-time • Good orthogonality • High range Ground-based
FDMA sidelobe radar with many
transmitters
Slow-time • Good orthogonality • High range / All, if high range /
FDMA Doppler sidelobe Doppler sidelobe
can be accepted
(b)
DDMA • Good orthogonality • Limited Doppler Low-frequency
Fig. 13: Range-angle map for a MIMO radar using circulating LFM waveform unambiguity radar
• Low range / Doppler
(a) Range-angle map; (b) Range and angle cuts in the target cell sidelobe range
Slow-time • Good orthogonality • Limited Doppler Low-frequency
Hadamard unambiguity radar for slow
• Low range / Doppler
Coding range moving target
sidelobe
detection
• Sensitive to fast-
moving target
Fast-time • Approximate • High range All, if high range
CDMA orthogonality sidelobe sidelobe can be
accepted
• Low Doppler
sidelobe
Slow-time • Approximate • High Doppler All, if high
CDMA orthogonality sidelobe Doppler sidelobe
can be accepted
• Low range sidelobe • High computation
load
Circulating • Good orthogonality • Loss of range All, if Ne-times
LFM resolution larger bandwidth
• Ultra low range /
can be transmitted
Doppler sidelobe

(a)
(b)
Fig. 14: Range-angle map for a MIMO radar using fast-time CDMA
waveform (a) Range-angle map; (b) Range and angle cuts in the target cell
VII. CONCLUSION
In this paper various types of MIMO radar waveforms are
briefly analyzed and compared. We summarize the merits and
demerits of all waveforms in Table 1. Again, there is no free
lunch. We must trade off something when using a particular
MIMO waveform in the real radar system. The radar engineers
should make careful selections according to the practical
requirements of MIMO radar system.
REFERENCES
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separated antennas", IEEE Signal Processing Magazine, Vol.25, No.1,
pp.116-129, Jan 2008.
[3] M. Xue, J. Li, P. Stoica, "Chapter 4: MIMO radar waveform design", in
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[7] B. Liu, "Orthogonal discrete frequency-coding waveform set design with
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[8] J. Kantor, S.K. Davis, "Airborne GMTI using MIMO techniques", 2010
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