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We address the problem of adaptive waveform design for extended target recognition in cognitive radar networks. A closed-loop active target recognition radar system is extended to the case of a centralized cognitive radar network, in which a generalized likelihood ratio (GLR) based sequential hypothesis testing (SHT) framework is employed. Using Doppler velocities measured by multiple radars, the target aspect angle for each radar is calculated. The joint probability of each target hypothesis is then updated using observations from different radar line of sights (LOS). Based on these probabilities, a minimum correlation algorithm is proposed to adaptively design the transmit waveform for each radar in an amplitude fluctuation situation. Simulation results demonstrate performance improvements due to the cognitive radar network and adaptive waveform design. Our minimum correlation algorithm outperforms the eigen-waveform solution and other non-cognitive waveform design approaches.

The problem of high‐resolution direction finding is considered using a distributed array network with array position errors, called partly calibrated array. These errors are common in practice, and significantly affect high angular resolution. Existing calibration methods rely on centralized data transmission, which requires all the measurements to be transmitted to a computation center. This centralized mode leads to communication bottlenecks and system inflexibility. Here, a decentralized mode is designed, where each sensor only communicates locally with their neighboring sensors. Based on this mode, a corresponding direction‐finding approach is proposed using sequential methods that process data one by one, which corresponds to the decentralized signal processing sensor by sensor. Simulations verify that the proposed method achieves decentralization with minor cost in estimation accuracy.We consider high‐resolution direction finding using distributed arrays with position errors between subarrays. Existing methods are based on centralized mode, which has communication bottlenecks and system inflexibility. Here, we propose a decentralized algorithm to solve this problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nowadays, mutual interference among automotive radars has become a problem of wide concern. In this article, a decentralized spectrum allocation approach is presented to avoid mutual interference among automotive radars. Although decentralized spectrum allocation has been extensively studied in cognitive radio sensor networks, two challenges are observed for automotive sensors using radar. First, the allocation approach should be dynamic as all radars are mounted on moving vehicles. Second, each radar does not communicate with the others so it has quite limited information. A machine learning technique, reinforcement learning, is utilized because it can learn a decision-making policy in an unknown dynamic environment. As a single radar observation is incomplete, a long short-term memory recurrent network is used to aggregate radar observations through time so that each radar can learn to choose a frequency subband by combining both the present and past observations. Simulation experiments are conducted to compare the proposed approach with other common spectrum allocation methods such as the random and myopic policy, indicating that our approach outperforms the others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Frequency agile radar (FAR) is known to have excellent electronic counter-countermeasures performance and the potential to realize spectrum sharing in dense electromagnetic environments. Many compressed sensing (CS) based algorithms have been developed for joint range and Doppler estimation in FAR. This paper considers theoretical analysis of FAR via CS algorithms. In particular, we analyze the properties of the sensing matrix, which is a highly structured random matrix. We then derive bounds on the number of recoverable targets. Numerical simulations and field experiments validate the theoretical findings and demonstrate the effectiveness of CS approaches to FAR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This letter addresses the detection of a subspace distributed target signal obscured by disturbance. The disturbance consists of a clutter component with an unknown subspace structure and a white noise component with unknown noise power. A detection strategy is proposed based on the volume cross-correlation function, which provides a metric that measures the linear (in) dependency between two subspaces. Simulation results indicate that the proposed detector can achieve better performance than several peer methods, without resorting to secondary data and a priori knowledge about the clutter subspace including its rank. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Time difference of arrival (TDOA) is widely used in wireless localization systems. Among the enormous approaches of TDOA, high resolution TDOA algorithms have drawn much attention for its ability to resolve closely spaced signal delays in multipath environment. However, the state-of-art high resolution TDOA algorithms still have performance weakness on resolving time delays in a wireless channel with dense multipath effect. In this paper, we propose a novel TDOA algorithm with super resolution based on a multi-dimensional cross-correlation function: the volume cross-correlation function (VCC). Theoretical analyses are provided to justify the feasibility of the proposed TDOA algorithm, and numerical simulations also show an excellent time resolution capability of the algorithm in multipath environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Frequency-modulated continuous-wave (FMCW) methods and switched antenna arrays (SAAs) are very attractive for application in automotive radar because of their low hardware complexity. In traditional SAA radar, the receiving antenna array elements are successively switched according to their natural spatial order [referred to as sequential SAAs (SSAAs)]. For radars using both SSAA and FMCW methods, the phase difference caused by the target azimuth and time delay will be difficult to distinguish, thus resulting in delay–space coupling, which may lead to degradation of the road target observation. In this paper, randomized SAA (RSAA) FMCW radar is proposed. The new radar scheme has high delay/space resolution for target location detection and character extraction, and can also solve the coupling problem. The signal model of RSAA FMCW radar is derived and compared with that of SSAA radar. The influence of the antenna-array switching mode on the radar performance is also analyzed. A conventional zero-padding algorithm and a new clustering FOCUSS algorithm are both introduced for the signal processing of the new radar scheme. The numerical results illustrate the performance of RSAA FMCW radar in high-resolution target imaging and delay–space decoupling. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A stepped-frequency (SF) waveform is effective in achieving high-range resolution (HRR) in modern radars. In this paper, we determine various fundamental limits of the SF waveform regarding the ambiguity, stability, and accuracy of stationary target profiling and the velocity compensation accuracy for moving targets. The investigation reveals that by using the information contained in both the phase and envelope of the echo signal, SF radars can achieve HRR profiles without ambiguity under a looser criterion and can compensate the range shift caused by a target's radial velocity. The results of this paper can aid in SF waveform design and in the development of processing algorithms for HRR profiling and velocity compensation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Abstract: Space–time adaptive processing (STAP) is a well-known technique in detecting slow-moving targets in the clutter-spreading environment. When considering the STAP system with conformal radar array (CFA), the training data are range-dependent, which results in poor detection performance of traditional statistical-based algorithms. Current registration-based compensation (RBC) is implemented based on a sub-snapshot spectrum using temporal smoothing. In this case, the estimation accuracy of the configuration parameters and the clutter power distribution is limited. In this paper, the technique of sparse representation is introduced into the spectral estimation, and a new compensation method is proposed, namely RBC with sparse representation (SR-RBC). This method first establishes the relationship between the clutter covariance matrix (CCM) and the clutter spectral distribution. Based on this, it avoids the problem of lacking stationary training data and converts the CCM estimation into the solving of the underdetermined equation only with the test cell. Then sparse representation method, like iterative reweighted least square (IRLS) is used to guide the solution of the underdetermined equation towards the actual clutter distribution. Finally, the transform matrix is designed using the CCM estimation so that the processed training data behaves nearly stationary with the test cell. Because the configuration parameters and the clutter spectral response are obtained with full-snapshot using sparse representation, SR-RBC provides more accurate clutter spectral estimation, and the transformed training data are more stationary so that better signal-clutter-ratio (SCR) improvement is achieved. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]