Coexistence of Communications and Cognitive MIMO Radar: Waveform Design and Prototype

New generation of radar systems will need to coexist with other radio frequency (RF) systems, anticipating their behavior and reacting appropriately to avoid interference. In light of this requirement, this paper designs, implements, and evaluates the performance of phase-only sequences (with constant power) for intelligent spectrum utilization using the custom built cognitive Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) radar prototype. The proposed transmit waveforms avoid the frequency bands occupied by narrowband interferers or communication links, while simultaneously have a small cross-correlation among each other to enable their separability at the MIMO radar receiver. The performance of the optimized set of sequences obtained through solving a non-convex bi-objective optimization problem, is compared with the state-of-the-art counterparts, and its applicability is illustrated by the developed prototype. A realistic Long Term Evolution (LTE) downlink is used for the communications, and the real-time system implementation is validated and evaluated through the throughput calculations for communications and the detection performance measurement for the radar system.