Joint Design and Operation of Shared Spectrum Access for Radar and Communications

A new theoretical foundation for the joint design and operation (JDO) of shared spectrum access for radar and communications (SSPARC) is presented. The JDO SSPARC framework entails advanced radar-comms channel estimation, along with a real-time adaptive space-time transmit and receive optimization procedure to maximize forward channel signal-to-noise while simultaneously minimizing co-channel interference. Additionally, a new expression for radar capacity is introduced that when combined with traditional communication capacity provides a unified measure of the total capacity of the combined radar-comms network. High fidelity site-specific electromagnetic radiation propagation simulations are conducted to provide a sense of the real-world potential gains achievable with JDO SSPARC as compared with non-optimized approaches.