Efficient multidimensional wideband parameter estimation for OFDM based joint radar and communication systems

In this paper, we propose a new pre-processing technique for efficient multidimensional wideband parameter estimation. One application is provided by an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing-(OFDM) based joint radar and communication system, which uses SIMO architecture. In this paper, the estimated parameters are given by the range (time delay), the relative velocity, and the direction of arrival (DoA) pairs of the dominant radar targets. Due to the wideband assumption, the received signals on different subcarriers are incoherent and, therefore, cannot fully exploit the frequency diversity of the OFDM waveform. To estimate the parameters jointly and coherently on different subcarriers, we propose an interpolation-based coherent multidimensional parameter estimation framework, where the wideband measurements are transformed into an equivalent narrowband system. Then, narrowband multidimensional parameter estimation algorithms can be applied. In particular, a wideband $R$ -D periodogram is introduced as a benchmark algorithm, and we develop the $R$ -D Wideband Unitary Tensor-ESPRIT algorithm. The simulations show that the proposed coherent parameter estimation method significantly outperforms the direct application of narrowband parameter estimation algorithms to the wideband measurements. If the fractional bandwidth is significant and the SNR is not too low, the estimates provided by the narrowband estimation algorithms can become inconsistent. Moreover, the interpolation order should be chosen according to the SNR regime. In the low SNR regime, interpolation with a lower-order (i.e., linear interpolation) is recommended. For higher SNRs, we propose an interpolation with higher-order polynomials, e.g., fourth-order (cubic splines) or even higher.