Joint beamforming design for low probability of intercept in transmit subaperturing MIMO radar

doi:10.23919/JSEE.2025.000098

Journal of Systems Engineering and Electronics ›› 2026, Vol. 37 ›› Issue (1): 94-103.doi: 10.23919/JSEE.2025.000098

• ELECTRONICS TECHNOLOGY • Previous Articles Next Articles

Joint beamforming design for low probability of intercept in transmit subaperturing MIMO radar

Jiale WU¹^,²(), Chenguang SHI¹^,²^,*(), Zhifeng WU²(), Jianjiang ZHOU¹()

¹Key Laboratory of Radar Imaging and Microwave Photonics, Ministry of Education, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing 210016, China
²Jianghuai Advanced Technology Center, Hefei 230000, China

Received:2024-03-12 Accepted:2025-06-23 Online:2026-02-18 Published:2026-03-09
Contact: Chenguang SHI E-mail:wujiale@nuaa.edu.cn;scg_space@163.com;andawzf@126.com;zjjee@nuaa.edu.cn
About author:
WU Jiale was born in 1996. He received his B.S. degree in information and computational science from Nanjing Tech University, Nanjing, China, in 2019. He is pursuing his Ph.D. degree in information and communication engineering at the Key Laboratory of Radar Imaging and Microwave Photonics, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Ministry of Education. His research interests include low probability of intercept optimization, beamforming design, and adaptive radar waveform design. E-mail: wujiale@nuaa.edu.cn

SHI Chenguang was born in 1989. He received his B.S. and Ph.D. degrees from Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing, China, in 2012 and 2017, respectively. He is an associate professor at the Key Laboratory of Radar Imaging and Microwave Photonics, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Ministry of Education. His research interests include low probability of intercept optimization, radar resource-aware management, adaptive radar waveform design, and target tracking. E-mail: scg_space@163.com

WU Zhifeng was born in 1992. He received his M.S. degree from Anhui University, Hefei, China, in 2018. He is an engineer in Jianghuai Advanced Technology Center (JATC). His research interests include design of radio frequency circuits, microwave components, and antenna. E-mail: andawzf@126.com

ZHOU Jianjiang was born in 1962. He received his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing, China, in 1988 and 2001, respectively. He is a professor and the Director of the Key Laboratory of Radar Imaging and Microwave Photonics, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Ministry of Education. His main research interests include aircraft radio frequency stealth, radar signal processing, and array signal processing. E-mail: zjjee@nuaa.edu.cn
Supported by:
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (62271247), the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province (BK20240181), the Dreams Foundation of Jianghuai Advance Technology Center (2023-ZM01D001), the National Aerospace Science Foundation of China (20220055052001), the Qing Lan Project of Jiangsu Province, the Fund of Prospective Layout of Scientific Research for Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, and the Key Laboratory of Radar Imaging and Microwave Photonics (Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics), Ministry of Education.

Abstract

Abstract:

In this paper, the joint design of transmit and receive beamformers for transmit subaperturing multiple-input-multiple-output (TS-MIMO) radar is investigated, aiming to enhance its low probability of intercept (LPI) capability. The main objective is to simultaneously minimize the transmission power, suppress the transmit sidelobe levels, and minimize the probability of intercept, thus bolstering the LPI performance of the radar system while maintaining the desired target detection performance. An alternative optimization method is proposed to jointly optimize the transmit and receive beamformers, yielding an unified LPI optimization framework. Particularly, the proposed iterative algorithm based on the Lagrange duality theory for transmit beamforming is more efficient than the conventional convex optimization method. Numerical experiments highlight the effectiveness of the proposed approach in sidelobe suppression and computational efficiency.

Key words: multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) radar, beamforming, subarray, low probability of intercept, sidelobe suppression, jamming

Jiale WU, Chenguang SHI, Zhifeng WU, Jianjiang ZHOU. Joint beamforming design for low probability of intercept in transmit subaperturing MIMO radar[J]. Journal of Systems Engineering and Electronics, 2026, 37(1): 94-103.

Figures/Tables 8

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References 32

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Number of subarrays	Method	Running time
$L = 4$	Proposed	0.2782
	SDP	3.0041
	IPM	0.1603
	PM	0.0246
$L = 8$	Proposed	0.8108
	SDP	9.8624
	IPM	0.3840
	PM	0.0617

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Joint beamforming design for low probability of intercept in transmit subaperturing MIMO radar

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