Target parameter estimation for OTFS radar using sparse signal processing

In this paper, we consider a monostatic radar receiver for a joint communication and radar (JCR) system that transmits orthogonal time frequency space (OTFS) frames for target detection and parameter estimation. The circular prolate pulse shape (CPPS) is employed over the OTFS signal as it has lower out-of-band (OoB) power radiation in comparison with the rectangular pulse shaped (RPS) OTFS. The PAPR of CPPS OTFS signal shows lowest value for larger frame duration and hence the signal can be considered to be a good candidate for JCR system. In the Delay-Doppler (DD) domain, the radar channel is sparse and therefore, we model the target detection problem as a sparse recovery problem to generate target profiles with higher peak-to-sidelobe ratio (PSLR). The target detection is carried out in the DD domain, the time–frequency (TF) domain, and in the time domain (TD). Sparse signal recovery algorithms like the orthogonal matching pursuit (OMP) algorithm, the subspace pursuit (SP) algorithm, and the sparse Bayesian learning (SBL) based algorithm are used in target parameter estimation. The performance of these algorithms are compared in terms of their computational complexity, the root mean squared error (RMSE) in the estimates of range and velocity and PSLR value in the target profiles. Simulation results validate that the proposed CPPS OTFS based radar system could detect the targets accurately in all the three domains and produce target profiles with almost zero side lobes. [Display omitted] •PAPR characteristics of the CPPS OTFS waveform is studied.•Modelling of the CPPS OTFS received signal in time, time–frequency and DD domains•Sparse modelling of the radar channel to generate target profiles with high PSLR•Generation of target profiles using the OMP, SP and SBL based algorithms•Comparison of the algorithms in terms of computational complexity and RMSE in estimates