Litcius/Paper detail

Covariance Tensor Decomposition for NLOS Direction Finding in RIS-Aided Bistatic MIMO Radar

Qian-Peng Xie, Xiao-Peng Li, Jiyuan Chen, Mingxing Fang

2026IEEE Signal Processing Letters8 citationsDOI

Abstract

This letter investigates the problem of direction-of-departure (DOD) and direction-of-arrival (DOA) estimation for non-line-of-sight (NLOS) targets in bistatic multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) radar systems assisted by an intelligent reflecting surface (IRS). To tackle this issue, we propose a covariance tensor subspace-based algorithm. First, the received data is modeled within a tensor framework to preserve their inherent multi-dimensional spatiotemporal structure. Then, a fourth-order covariance tensor is constructed by computing correlations along the temporal dimension. Using the higher-order singular value decomposition (HOSVD), the signal subspace matrix is derived from this covariance tensor. The receive steering matrix is accurately reconstructed by exploiting the property of the Khatri–Rao product for full-column-rank matrices. Based on the estimated signal subspace and the reconstructed steering matrix, DOD and DOA estimation is efficiently performed via the rotational invariance technique combined with a one-dimensional correlation-based method, which provides automatic parameter pairing. Simulation results validate the superiority and effectiveness of the proposed algorithm in estimating angles.

Topics & Concepts

Signal subspaceSingular value decompositionCovariance matrixTensor (intrinsic definition)AlgorithmCovarianceRotational invarianceComputer scienceBistatic radarSubspace topologyEstimation of covariance matricesCovariance intersectionRadarEstimation theoryMatrix decompositionMatrix (chemical analysis)MathematicsMIMOSIGNAL (programming language)Non-line-of-sight propagationSignal processingDirection of arrivalEigendecomposition of a matrixOrthogonalityTensor decompositionRadar trackerDirection findingSignal-to-noise ratio (imaging)Passive radarRadar imagingArray processingNoise measurementDirection-of-Arrival Estimation TechniquesRadar Systems and Signal ProcessingAdvanced Wireless Communication Technologies