Waveform Optimization for Target Estimation by Cognitive Radar with Multiple Antennas

The typical approach to radar target classification is to image the target with waveforms that provide high resolution and low sidelobes, and then to compare the target images to a template library. In this chapter, we reconsider whether imaging-based metrics for waveform design are best for target classification, and develop alternative design strategies that result in waveforms with improved classification ability, but not necessarily a good ambiguity function by traditional notions. After presenting waveform design strategies based on optimizing signal-to-noise ratio or mutual information from a wide-sense stationary (WSS) ensemble of target impulse responses, we apply the design methods to the problem of radar target classification through a two-step process. The first step is to modify the design methodology that was based on WSS targets to account for the finite duration of practical target responses. The second step is to use the target class probabilities and impulse response library to calculate a weighted power spectral variance over target classes, which is then substituted into the design equations. The use of target class probabilities enables the waveform to be adapted in response to previous transmissions. Waveform behaviour and performance are studied over several different clutter and noise scenarios. The target impulse response library for these studies is based on finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) simulation of a publically available CAD model of an F-16 aircraft.

In the past decades, there has been an extensive research interest in the areas of both waveform diversity/design and advanced signal processing algorithms departing from the more classical solutions based on Linear Frequency Modulated (LFM) pulses and Matched Filters (MF). In the waveform diversity community, especially within the context of spectrum sharing, MIMO and cognitive radars, several waveform optimization and design methodologies have been studied, see [1], [2] and references therein. In parallel to waveform design, several signal processing techniques have also been proposed which exploit some kind of prior knowledge and/or iterative algorithms to improve the performance of the more classical MF, such as the Adaptive Pulse Compression(APC) [3], MUSIC [4], CLEAN [5] and Sparse Signal Processing (SSP) [6], [7]. In this paper we present some results and examples to show how the combination of waveform design with SSP can lead to improved performance in radar compared to the more classical approach.

The problem of adaptive orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) waveform design in the case of stochastic extended targets in the presence of strong and nonstationary interferences is an essential part of a cognitive radar system. In this article, a new approach is developed based on maximizing the mutual information between the random target impulse response and the received echoes with respect to the transmitted waveform. We use the advantage of OFDM signals and present an adaptive structure to match the complex weights of OFDM signal with the radar scene for making complete use of the transmission power. The interference reflections are utilized rather than eliminating them to design the weights of the transmitted OFDM signal. The optimization algorithm for designing transmitted signals is based on adaptive learning whose essential information is obtained by a feedback between receiver and transmitter. This feedback includes essential target and interference characteristics which extracted from the reflected echoes. Based on changes in interference features, the weights of the transmitted OFDM signal on each subcarrier are designed and transmitted in the next coherent processing interval. Experimental results reveal that the proposed approach achieves a higher rate of performance compared to nonadaptive waveform design approaches.

In this paper, the problem of adaptive waveform design for cognitive radar (CR) in signal-dependent interference, as well as additive channel noise is investigated. With constraints on waveform energy and bandwidth, a flexible waveform optimization method taking both detection and range resolution into account is proposed. Unlike existing optimal waveforms designed by a single design criterion, waveform designed by the proposed method can be updated according to the environment information fed back by receiver and radar performance demands simultaneously at each cycle of CR. Simulations are conducted to illustrate that CR with the proposed waveform performs better than traditional radar system with fixed waveform, and offers more practical and flexible.

Widely distributed multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) radar systems offer parameter estimation improvement for target localization, proportional to the product of the number of transmitting and receiving radars and the total transmitted power. Thus far, power allocation has been uniformly distributed between the system transmitters. For a large number of radars, the achievable localization mean-square error (MSE), with full resource allocation, may extend beyond the system predetermined performance goals, such as target localization accuracy (i.e., minimum estimation MSE) and total power radiation. In this study, power allocation schemes are developed, taking into account system constraints. The first is concerned with minimizing the total transmitted power such that a predefined estimation MSE objective is met, while keeping the transmitted power at each station within an acceptable range. The second, optimally distributes a given power budget among all transmitting radars to maximize performance, i.e., minimize the attainable localization MSE. As the Cramer-Rao bound (CRB) is known to be asymptotically tight to the maximum likelihood estimator (MLE) MSE at high SNR, it is used as a metric for the estimation MSE. The CRB is derived for a signal model that incorporates the propagation path loss, the target radar cross section (RCS), and the transmitters' powers. It is shown that uniform or equal power allocation is not in general optimal and that the proposed allocation algorithms result in a local optimum that provided either better localization MSE for the same power budget or requires less power to establish the same performance in terms of estimation MSE. A physical interpretation of these conclusions is offered.

This article addresses the problem of radar waveform design for imaging targets in a cluttered environment. A multistatic radar scenario is considered for sparse and random sensor positions. The target impulse response is modeled using the simulated frequency response of a buried metallic mine, and the clutter is modeled using the compound Gaussian (CG) distribution. We explore novel waveform design techniques with respect to the mutual information (MI) criterion based on the CG clutter. The first method presents a waveform that exploits the CG distribution of the scene reflectivity function when projected onto a sparse basis. This is compared to the second method, called the target-specific approach that uses knowledge of the target and clutter frequency responses to optimize a matched illumination waveform. In both cases, the Taguchi and particle swarm optimization solvers are employed for MI-based waveform design optimization. To validate and compare the effectiveness of the optimized waveforms, the resulting scene reflectivity function is estimated using the sparsity-driven regularization radar imaging method. Our experimental results demonstrate that both waveform optimization techniques result in significantly better image reconstruction performance than the traditional linear-frequency-modulated waveform, and that the target-specific approach additionally suppresses clutter information in the scene.

The cognitive radar is intelligent radar. In this paper, optimization of received waveform for the cognitive radar to estimate the extended targets in the presence of the clutter is discussed. The echo signal back to the radar is convolution between transmitted waveform and each extended Target Impulse Response (TIR) and convolution between transmitted waveform and clutter in the environment. A two step method is used to minimize the echo signal. The first step includes minimization of mutual Coherence individually for every extended target. The second step includes weight vector optimization by maximum iteration method. Finally optimized transmitted Waveform generated gives an accurate results and with better detection.

We propose a parametric waveform design approach for improved detection of extended targets embedded in uncorrelated signal-dependent clutter and noise, whose spectral densities are assumed to be known. Unlike canonical waveform design approaches, the transmit waveform is represented as a weighted linear combination of discrete prolate spheroidal sequences. In the optimization problem, the probability of detection is maximized with respect to the weighting factors of the associated discrete prolate spheroidal sequences under the transmit energy constraint. The weighting factors, which are resolved using a numerical method, lead directly to the desired transmit waveform in the time domain. In comparison to the canonical waveform design approaches, the extra step for time sequence synthesis is avoided and the loss in probability of detection produced therein is remedied. Simulation results demonstrate the improvement in the probability of detection for the proposed approach. However, the improvement comes at the cost of higher computational complexity.

In this paper, OFDM data-aided channel estimation based on the decimation of the Channel Impulse Response (CIR) through the selection of the Most Significant Samples (MSS) is addressed. Our aim is to approach the Minimum Mean Square Error (MMSE) channel estimation performance, while avoiding the need for a-priori knowledge of channel statistics (KCS). The optimal set of samples is defined in the instantaneous and average senses. We derive lower bounds on the estimation mean-square error (MSE) performance for any MSS selection strategy. We show how MSS-based channel estimation can approach these MSE lower bounds. We introduce novel MSS strategies oriented towards instantaneous decimation (Instantaneous Energy Selection - IES), and windowed decimation (Average Energy Selection - AES). We also consider decimation via Threshold Crossing Selection (TCS), which we characterize analytically, to derive the optimum threshold in the minimum MSE sense. We also propose a sub-optimal method for threshold setting that does not require KCS. Finally, we provide numerical results in terms of both MSE estimation performance and Bit Error Rate (BER) of a coded OFDM system using the proposed channel estimators, to show that they indeed approach MMSE performance.

A unified approach for computing the optimum settings of a length-N/sub f/ input-aided equalizer that minimizes the mean-square error between the equalized channel impulse response and a target impulse response of a given length N/sub b/ is presented. This approach offers more insight into the problem, easily accommodates correlation in the input and noise sequences, leads to significant computational savings, and allows us to analyze a variety of constraints on the target impulse response besides the standard unit-tap constraint. In particular, we show that imposing a unit-energy constraint results in a lower mean-square error at a comparable computational complexity. Furthermore, we show that, under the assumed constraint of finite-length filters, the relative delay between the equalizer and the target impulse response plays a crucial role in optimizing performance. We describe a new characterization of the optimum delay and show how to compute it. Finally, we derive reduced-parameter pole-zero models of the equalizer that achieve the high performance of a long all-zero equalizer at a much lower implementation cost.

A unified treatment for performance evaluation of various array signal processors is presented. Detection performance is expressed in terms of the parameter of the power-type receiver operating characteristic (ROC) for optimum, beamformer, and null-steerer detectors. Estimation performance is analyzed in terms of the normalized mean-square error (MSE) for minimum mean-square error (MMSE) and maximum likelihood estimators (MLE's) under a varying noise environment. Sensitivity of the detection/estimation performance to the varying internal and directional noise sources is investigated. An interesting inverse relationship is presented between the normalized MSE of the MMSE estimator and the power-type ROC parameter for the optimum detector.

The performance of time-domain channel estimation deteriorates due to the presence of Gaussian mixture model (GMM) noise, which results in high mean squared error (MSE) as a challenging issue. The performance of the estimator further decreases when the complexity of the estimator is high due to the high convergence rate. In this paper, an optimized channel estimation method is proposed with low complexity and high accuracy in the GMM environment. In this channel estimation, an improved Gauss-Seidel iterative method is utilized with a minimum number of iterations. The convergence rate of the Gauss-Seidel method is improved by estimating an appropriate initial guess value when no guard bands are used in the orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) symbol. Simulation results provide an acceptable MSE for GMM environments, up to the probability of 5% impulsive noise component. This paper also presents the design and implementation of the proposed estimator in the NEXYS-2 FPGA platform that provides resources allocation, reconfigurability, schematic, and the timing diagram for detailed insight.

Problem statement: The double Pareto distribution appeared most often as model for variety of fields, including archaeology, biology, economics, environmental science, finance and physics. The distribution exhibits Paretian power-law behavior in both tails. The family of double Pareto distributions has recently been proposed for modeling growth rates such as annual gross domestic product, stock prices, foreign currency exchange rates and company sizes. In this study, I develop parameter estimates for the double Pareto distribution that are easy to compute. I compare the performance of the maximum likelihood estimate with Bayesian and the method of moments estimates. Approach: This study contracted with maximum likelihood, the method of moments and Bayesian using Jeffrey’s prior and the extension of Jeffrey’s prior information. The comparisons are made on the performance of these estimators with respect to the Mean Squared Error (MSE) for small, moderate and large samples and for some values of the scale and the extension of Jeffrey’s prior parameters using the simulation techniques. Results: It turns out that the maximum likelihood method and Bayesian method with Jeffrey’s prior result in smaller MSE compared to others in all cases. Conclusion: Based on the results of the simulation, the maximum likelihood method and Bayesian method with Jeffrey’s prior are found to be the best with respect to MSE.

Cognitive radar systems offer improved performance through mimicking the perception-action cycle in human cognition. While most of the efforts in the area to-date focus on agile waveform design and sensor management, in this paper, we propose adaptive control of novel multifunctional reconfigurable antennas (MRAs) as a mechanism for action within the cognitive radar framework. Reconfigurable parasitic layer based MRAs have the capability of dynamically and simultaneously changing its electromagnetic characteristics (mode of operation), e.g. antenna beam pattern, polarization, center frequency, or a combination of thereof. In this work, a designed and fabricated reconfigurable parasitic layer based MRA is presented. A computationally efficient mode selection scheme is proposed to adaptively select the modes of the MRA for a defined cost such as improved SNR or lower Cramer Rao Bound. A cognitive target tracking framework is proposed through MRA mode selection for cognitive radars. Initial results show that MRAs with mode selection provides enhanced direction-of-arrival (DoA) estimation and cognitive target tracking performance.

In cognitive radar system, how the transmitted waveform adapts in response to information regarding the radar environment is an important problem. In this paper, the waveform design for cognitive radar is viewed as an optimization problem. Then a new waveform design method for cognitive radar is proposed, which uses IPM (interior-point method) to carry out the optimization task. The simulation results demonstrate the validity of our algorithm.