Assessing Agile Spectrum Management for Cognitive Radar on Measured Data

Radar operation in a spectrally dense environment is nowadays a very challenging problem due to the increasing demand of spectral resources for defence/surveillance applications, remote sensing capabilities, and civilian wireless services. This article explores the technical feasibility of radar waveforms capable of ensuring spectral coexistence with overlaid emitters via a modern digital arbitrary waveform generator. To this end, a specific hardware-in-the-loop test bed is designed to mimic the perception-action cycle necessary for the agile management of the radio spectrum. Then, a spectrum analyzer (SA) and a digital oscilloscope (DO) are used to demonstrate the compliance of the synthesized waveforms with the theoretical counterparts. In particular, the SA is used to establish if the synthesized waveforms fulfil the spectral requirements forced at the design stage. The DO, instead, is used to assess the adherence of synthesized signals ambiguity function (AF) with the theoretical one. For the considered case studies, results highlight that the synthesized waveforms enable spectral compatibility between radar and communication systems and exhibit desirable AF properties.