Computation-Oriented Communication

Abstract

Debris are human-made objects in earth orbit that have no usefulness but create hazards for the valuable space assets. The space activities are considerably huge in low earth orbit (LEO), and hence, most orbital debris resides within the orbital altitude of 500 – 1000km from Earth's surface. This is the region where the highest concentration of debris is detected. The ground-based radars are in practice globally to detect and characterize the LEO debris environment with the help of collected statistical data. Radar systems used for the monitoring and tracking of space debris will help in generating alert messages for avoiding a collision between operational spacecraft and debris. Multiple input multiple output (MIMO)-based radar has the potential to provide optimum solutions for space debris tracking. It provides wider illumination area, clutter reduction, and hence improvising the object detection capabilities. This chapter provides a study of performance estimation for MIMO radar and comparing the detector performance for signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) improvement.