Reconstruction and Estimation of Scattering Functions of Overspread Radar Targets

In many radar scenarios, the radar target or the medium is assumed to possess randomly varying parts. The properties of a target are described by a random process known as the spreading function. Its second order statistics under the WSSUS assumption are given by the scattering function. Recent developments in the operator identification theory suggest a channel sounding procedure that allows to determine the spreading function given complete statistical knowledge of the operator echo. We show that in a continuous model it is indeed theoretically possible to identify a scattering function of an overspread target given full statistics of a received echo from a single sounding by a custom weighted delta train. Our results apply whenever the scattering function is supported on a set of area less than one. Absent such complete statistics, we construct and analyze an estimator that can be used as a replacement of the averaged periodogram estimator in case of poor geometry of the support set of the scattering function.