Radar waveform optimization for joint radar communications performance

We develop and present a radar waveform design method that optimizes the spectral shape of the radar waveform so that joint performance of a cooperative radar communications system is maximized. The continuous water-filling (WF) spectral-mask shaping method presented in this paper is based on the previously derived spectral-mask shaping technique. However, the method presented in this paper is modified to utilize the continuous spectral water-filling algorithm to improve communications performance. We also introduce additional practical system constraints on the autocorrelation peak side-lobe-to-main-lobe ratio and radar waveform spectral leakage. Finally, we perform a numerical study to compare the performance of the continuous WF spectral-mask-shaping method with the previously derived method. The global estimation rate, which also accounts for non-local estimation errors, and the data rate capture radar and communications performance respectively.