Waveform design and signal processing for integrated radar-communication system based on frequency diversity array

Abstract

Frequency diversity array (FDA) radar can continuously scan the whole airspace within a pulse duration by introducing a stepping frequency increment among each array element. The integrated radar-communication system (IRCS) based on FDA can perform multi-directional communication and target detection in a single pulse. We propose the waveform design and signal processing methods for IRCS based on FDA. Firstly, the transmit signal model adopts the pulse mode, and each pulse is divided into multiple sub-pulses. The communication symbols are embedded into the radar transmit waveform of each sub-pulse through phase-shift keying. Then, the tangent frequency-modulated signal is employed as the baseband waveform with the space coding by the Zadoff-Chu sequence to ensure pulse compression performance. Finally, the signal processing methods of radar and communication are proposed, respectively. The performances are verified in terms of the transmit-receive beampattern, multi-dimensional ambiguity function, and bit error rate. The simulation results demonstrate that the proposed method can perform multi-symbol communication under the premise of satisfying the directional scanning and pulse compression performances.