Proceedings of the 11th European Radar Conference
Resolution of Multiple Unresolved Targets via Dual
Monopulse with Array Radar
Jiani Wu∗ , Zhenhai Xu, Ziyuan Xiong, Bin Rao, Huimei Wang, Yongguang Chen†
∗ State Key Laboratory of Complex Electromagnetic Environment Effects on Electronics and Information System,
National University of Defense Technology, Changsha, China, 410073.
Email: tuotuonini@163.com
† Beijing Institute of Tracking and Telecommunications Technology, Beijing, China, 100094.
Email: ygchen@netease.com
Abstract—In the antimissile context, it is important to detect
and resolve the unresolved targets in the middle of the ballistic
flight. As the targets in group are very close to each other, the
traditional techniques are difficult to resolve them. In this paper,
we study the problem of grouped target resolution in the angle
dimension with array radar. We first establish an echo model of
the array radar when there are two unresolved targets in one
beam. Then we derive an improved monopulse method based
on the maximum likelihood estimation principle, which realizes
angle resolution based on a dual monopulse system. Finally, the
performance of this method is evaluated by simulations in the
cases of varying SNR, inter-target angle separation and inter-
target phase/amplitude differences. The simulation results prove
that the method performs very well in many aspects, including
smaller estimation error and enhanced adaptation to inter-target
amplitude difference.
Index Terms—Two Unresolved Targets; Maximum Likelihood
Estimation; Monopulse; Dual Monopulse System
I. I NTRODUCTION
The middle of the ballistic flight is the critical stage
for the antimissile interceptor to complete its tactical tasks.
However, the interceptor has to cope with the complex en-
vironments composing of real warheads, various light and
heavy bait (dummy warheads, balloons, etc.), chaff, active
jammers and the abandoned of boost phase. Moreover, the
true and disguised targets are grouped together and they
have similar ballistic movement characteristics, which makes
ballistic target recognition even more difficult. In the context
of ballistic missile defense, if the targets are not detected and
resolved correctly, undesirable consequences will be produced
[1]. For example, for the tracking and guidance radar, unre-
solved targets will introduce deviation to the radar observation
orientation, which probably results in interception failure and
target loss [2]. Therefore, the resolution of ballistic targets is
a key technical problem that should be solved.
The grouped targets may be resolved in the distance di-
mension, angle dimension or Doppler dimension, and among
them, the angle information is of great importance, especially
when the targets lie in the same rang cell and have similar
velocities. Therefore, we seek to resolve those targets in
the angle dimension in this paper based on the monopulse
array radar, which has lots of advantages such as high angle
measuring accuracy and simple system construction. However,
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it should be noted that the conventional monopulse technique
is not applicable straightforwardly to the case when there are
two unresolved targets in a single beam. Researchers have
made a lot of efforts on improved monopulse techniques [3-8].
In order to resolve the Swerling II targets, Blair and Brandt-
Pearce made use of the distribution of the real and imaginary
parts of the monopulse ratio, and proposed a method based on
generalized maximum likelihood (ML) ratio testing according
to the Neyman-Person rule [3-5]. Sinha and Bar-Shalom then
developed the maximum likelihood angle estimation method
to resolve two Rayleigh targets with monopulse radar [6]. Af-
ter that, Zhang exploited two target echo samples to proposed
a maximum likelihood method for target parameter estimation
[7], which requires the target echo energy to distribute over
the two adjacent samples. Zhou LanFeng researched how the
RCS fluctuation of targets affects monopulse radar system and
addresses a method of resolving two unresolved targets based
on the statistical feature of monopulse angular estimation for
slow fluctuation targets [8]. However, none of these methods
have referred to and made use of the advantages of the array
radar.
This paper first establishes an echo model of two tar-
gets received by the array radar, and then develops a dual
monopulse method to estimate the direction-of-arrival (DOA)
of the targets according to the maximum likelihood estimation
principle. The method is expected to gain advantages in DOA
estimation accuracy and moderate requirement on the system
complexity as it is based on the dual monopulse system. The
core idea of the proposed method is that, two monopulse
systems are formed and each of them points at one of the
targets, and iterations are then carried out to reduce the DOA
estimation errors. In the Section V, the performance of this
method is demonstrated via Monte Carlo simulations.
II. T WO - TARGET ECHO MODEL OF ARRAY RADAR
Consider the uniform linear array consisting of N elements,
the measurement of a single echo received by the array in the
case of two targets is
x=A1 s(u1 )+A2 s(u2 )+n (1)
where
(N −1)dπ (N −3)dπ (N −3)dπ (N −1)dπ
s(ui )=[e−j λ ui
,e−j λ ui
,...,ej λ ui
,ej λ ui
]T
8-10 Oct 2014, Rome, Italy
is the array steering vector,ui =sinθi , i=1,2, θ1 and θ2 are where P s1 ⊥ =I−s1 s1 H and P s2 ⊥ =I−s2 s2 H are the orthog-
the angles of the two targets with respect to the normal of the onal projection matrices with respect to s1 and s2 , respec-
array.λ is the wavelength, d is the distance between adjacent tively, which satisfy
array elements. A1 ,A2 ∈C1×1 are the complex amplitudes of
kP s1 ⊥ s2 k2 =kP s2 ⊥ s1 k2 =1−|s2 H s1 |2 (11)
the two target echoes, respectively. n∈CN ×1 represents the
thermal noise received by array, which is independently and Moreover,
identically distributed white Gaussian noise with zero mean H H
and a variance of σ 2 . (P s2 ⊥ s1 ) (P s1 ⊥ s2 )
wΣ1 = 2, wΣ2 = 2 (12)
kP s2 ⊥ s1 k kP s1 ⊥ s2 k
III. M AXIMUM LIKELIHOOD DOA ESTIMATION
According to the distribution of the noise in (1), one can It can be easily obtained that wΣ1 H s1 =1,wΣ1 H s2 =0 and
conclude in the following Gaussian density function of the wΣ2 H s1 =0,wΣ2 H s2 =1 .
array measurement with respect to A1 ,A2 ,u1 ,u2 , Thus Â1 ,Â2 can be deemed as the sum beams of the
monopulse system I and II, respectively, which are denoted
H
p(x;u,a)=[1/(πσ 2 )]N exp{−[1/σ 2 ](x−Sa) (x−Sa)} as Σ1 ,Σ2 in the rest of the paper. wΣ1 ,wΣ2 are the weight
(2) vectors of Σ1 ,Σ2 . The formulation of the sum beams helps
The maximum likelihood estimates can then be obtained by to enhance the target signal of interest and suppress the signal
maximizing the above formula, which equals to minimizing of the other target at the same time.
H According Eq.(5) and (6), one can obtain that,
(x−Sa) (x−Sa). For notational convenience, we normal-
∆
ize x as √1N x= √1N (A1 s(u1 )+A2 s(u2 )+n)=A1 s1 +A2 s2 + H H
∆1 =s01 x−A2 s01 s2 =s01 (x−A2 s2 )
H
(13)
h i
∆
n0 , in which s1 s2 = √1N s(u1 ) √1N s(u2 ) =
 
H H H
S and n0 = √1N n . Denote Q=(x−Sa)H (x−Sa) ,then ∆2 =s02 x−A1 s02 s1 =s02 (x−A1 s1 ) (14)
A1 ,A2 ,u1 ,u2 can be estimated by setting the partial differ- Substituting Eq.(9) and (10) into Eq.(13) and (14) respectively
entiations of Q with respect to them to 0, i.e., yields
∂Q/∂A1 =−s1 H x+A1 +A2 s1 H s2 =0 (3)
!
H
H (P s1 ⊥ s2 ) x
∂Q/∂A2 =−s2 H x+A1 s2 H s1 +A2 =0 (4) ∆1 =s01 x− 2 s2 =w∆1 x (15)
kP s1 ⊥ s2 k
0H 0H
∂Q/∂u1 =2Re[−AH H
1 s1 x+A1 A2 s1 s2 ]=0 (5) !
H
H (P s2 ⊥ s1 ) x
0H 0H ∆2 =s02 x− s1 =w∆2 x (16)
∂Q/∂u2 =2Re[−AH H
2 s2 x+A2 A1 s2 s1 ]=0 (6) kP s2 ⊥ s1 k
2

which conclude in the following estimates according to (3) where

and (4), H
!
H s2 (P s1 ⊥ s2 )
s1 H x−s2 H xs1 H s2 w∆1 =s01 I− 2
Â1 = (7) kP s1 ⊥ s2 k
1−||s1 H s2 ||2 H
H s0 1 s2
=s01 − 2 (P s1 ⊥ s2 )
H
(17)
s2 H x−s1 H xs2 H s1 kP s1 ⊥ s2 k
Â2 = (8)
1−||s2 H s1 ||2 !
H
However, it is difficult to obtain the expressions of û1 ,û2 H s1 (P s2 ⊥ s1 )
w∆2 =s02 I− 2
straightforwardly based on these equations [9], so we propose kP s2 ⊥ s1 k
a dual monopulse method for angle estimation following H
H s0 2 s1
the guidelines of the above derivations. In the method, two =s02 − 2 (P s2 ⊥ s1 )
H
(18)
monopulse systems are constructed and the angles of the two kP s2 ⊥ s1 k
unresolved targets are estimated via iterations. It can be easily concluded that w∆1 H s1 =0 , w∆1 H s2 =0 ,
IV. D UAL - MONOPULSE - BASED DOA ESTIMATION METHOD w∆2 H s2 =0 , w∆2 H s1 =0
Thus ∆1 ,∆2 can be deemed as the difference beams of
It can be concluded from Eq. (7) and (8) that,
monopulse system I and II respectively, and w∆1 ,w∆2 are
H
s1 H x−s2 H xs1 H s2 (P s2 ⊥ s1 ) x the weight vectors of ∆1 ,∆2 . The difference beams of the
Â1 = = 2 =w Σ1 x (9)
1−||s1 H s2 ||2 kP s2 ⊥ s1 k two systems help to suppress the jamming signal. The iterative
formulas of monopulse system I and II are
H
s2 H x−s1 H xs2 H s1 (P s1 ⊥ s2 ) x
   
∆1 ∆2
Â2 = = 2 =w Σ2 x (10) u1t =u10 +k −1 , u2t =u20 +k −1 (19)
1−||s2 H s1 ||2 kP s1 ⊥ s2 k Σ1 Σ2

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where k is the slope of the monopulse response curve (MRC) |θ1 −θ2 |/θ3dB , the unitary root mean square error (URMSE)
and its value is derived according to literature [10] when the is URMSE=RMSE/θ3dB .
angle estimation error is very small. The formula for setting The influences of SNR, the azimuth and the correlation of
the value of MRC is the two target echoes on the performance of the proposed
method are studied in the following simulations. The corre-
H H lation of the two target echoes is defined as the amplitude
k=[s00 (u) s(u)+s(u) s00 (u)]/sH (u)s(u)
ratio and the phase difference of two target echo amplitudes,
N −1
X 2 
d
2 namely A2 =ρA1 ej∆φ with ρ being the amplitude ratio and
=8 πn( ) /N (20) ∆φ the phase difference. When the influence of a certain
λ
n=− N −1
2
factor on the DOA estimation performance is studied, the
other parameters are fixed on typical values. In each situation,
According to the above derivations and Eq.(19), the dual
1000 Monte Carlo simulations are carried out to obtain the
monopulse system for angle estimation can be constructed
statistical performances.
as that shown in Fig.1.
A. Relationship between the DOA Estimation Accuracy and
the SNR
In this experiment, we assume the radian of the two target
azimuths to be θ1 =−0.007,θ2 =0.009 , respectively, and the
corresponding unitary azimuths are θ̄1 =−0.4,θ̄2 =0.5. Fig.2
shows the relationship curve between the URMSE of the two
targets and the SNR with SNR=SNR1 =SNR2 .

Fig. 1. The process of the dual-monopulse-based DOA estimation method

According to Eq.(19) , this system estimates the directions

of the two unresolved targets based on the current beam
pointing orientations. Then the beam orientation is updated
according to the refreshed DOA estimates. The iteration is
terminated when a predefined convergence criterion is sat-
isfied. In this paper, the convergence criterion is set when
Fig. 2. Relationship curve between URMSE and SNR
the difference between the new DOA estimates and the beam
pointing orientations is less than a certain iterative threshold Fig.2 shows that the RMSE decreases and the angle esti-
in a single cycle. In Fig.1, u10 ,u20 are the sine values of the mation accuracy improves with increasing SNR.
current beam pointing angles and u1t ,u2t are the sine values
of the DOA estimates of the two targets, γ is the iterative B. Relationship between the DOA Estimation Accuracy and
threshold. Inter-Target Angle
V. S IMULATION In this experiment, we assume the SNR of the two signals
as SNR1 =SNR2 =30dB, Fig.3 shows the relationship curve
Consider a vertical uniform linear array whose inter-
between the URMSE1 of the first target and the unitary inter-
element distance equals half-wavelength. The number of array
target angle ∆θ .
elements is N=100, then the beamwidth is θ3dB =0.886 Nλd ≈
Fig.3 shows that the URMSE increases when the inter-target
1.016◦ . The iterative threshold γ=10−8 . SNR is defined as
angle decreases. The phenomenon accords with the experience
the ratio of the direct signal power to the noise variance
2 of most radar users that, when the inter-targer angle decreases,
of each array element, i.e., SNRi = |Aσi2| .qThe root mean the two targets get closer and become more difficult to be
square error (RMSE) defined as RMSEi = E[(θ̂i −θi )2 ] is resolved, and the precision of DOA estimation decreases ac-
introduced for DOA estimation precision evaluation. In or- cordingly. From the above figure one can conclude that when
der to enhance the generality of the conclusions, the target SNR=30dB and the inter-target angle is bigger than 0.4 times
azimuth, the included angle and the RMSE are normalized the beamwidth, the URMSE is smaller than 0.004. When the
with respect to the beam width, the unitary azimuth of the inter-target angle is smaller than 0.4 times the beamwidth, the
target is θ̄i =θi /θ3dB , the unitary inter-target angle is ∆θ= URMSE increases significantly but upper bounded by 0.02.

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Fig. 3. Relationship curve of the URMSE and the unitary inter-target angle
The results indicate that the proposed method has small DOA
estimation errors.
C. Relationship between the DOA Estimation Accuracy and
the Amplitude Ratio
In this experiment, we assume the unitary azimuths of the
two targets are θ̄1 =−0.4,θ̄2 =0.5 , respectively. The SNR of
the first target is SNR1 =10dB , and that of the second one
is SNR2 =ρ2 SNR1 . The variety of the URMSE of the two
targets while the amplitude ratio increases is showed in Fig.4.
Fig. 4. Relationship curve between the URMSE and the amplitude ratio
Fig.4 shows that when the amplitude ratio improves, the
URMSE of the first target varies slightly and that of the
second target decreases significantly because of the SNR
enhancement. The results indicate that the influence of the
SNR of one target on the DOA estimation performance of the
other target is small. Namely, the big target will not envelop
the small one and affect its DOA estimation performance.
D. Relationship between the DOA Estimation Accuracy and
the Phase Difference
In this experiment, we assume the unitary azimuths are
θ̄1 =−0.35,θ̄2 =0.4 , SNR1 =SNR2 =30dB , the phase of the
echo amplitude of the first target is 0. The relationship curve
between the URMSE and ∆φ is showed in Fig.5.
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Fig. 5. Relationship curve between the URMSE and the phase difference
Fig.5 shows that the URMSE of the first target increases
and the accuracy of the DOA estimates decreases when the
phase difference ∆φ improves.
VI. C ONCLUSION
This paper studied the problem of resolving two unresolved
targets in a single beam using an array radar, and a dual-
monopulse-based maximum likelihood method is proposed.
The simulation results indicate that, this method works effec-
tively, and it gains advantages in small estimation error and
adaptation to inter-signal power difference. The simulation
results also demonstrate that, the DOA estimation error of the
proposed method decreases with increasing SNRs and inter-
target angles. Moreover, conclusions has also been obtained
that, when the echo amplitude phase of one target increases,
the DOA estimation error of the other one increases.
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