Target Localization and Self-Calibration in a Multistatic Radar System

Abstract

Target localization in a multistatic radar system, where multiple receivers cooperate to improve target positioning accuracy, has many applications, including cooperative simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) and autonomous robot networks. A key challenge in these applications is the uncertainty in the position and orientation (pose) of the radar receivers due to platform mobility. This work investigates the achievable improvements in both target localization and receiver pose estimation by deriving the Cramer-Rao lower bound (CRLB) for a multistatic radar system performing bistatic range and bearing measurements. We propose an alternating weighted least-squares algorithm that jointly optimizes target and receiver parameters. Monte Carlo simulations demonstrate that the algorithm performance approaches the CRLB for low to moderate noise levels.