Adaptive Beamsteering for Search-and-Track Application with Cognitive Radar Network

Abstract

In this paper, we introduce the concept of a Cognitive Radar Network (CRN). The goal of the radar platforms in a CRN is to cooperate in illuminating the radar channel in an efficient manner in an effort to search for moving targets. Moreover, when a detection is declared, the CRN should incorporate the tracking requirement into the illumination strategy. That is, the beamsteering strategy must exploit the radar channel uncertainty, which is a function of probabilistic representation of the channel. The radar channel uncertainty is dynamic and as such the CRN’s beamsteering strategy should be dynamic. Here, we demonstrate a CRN by utilizing two static radar platforms that form a dynamic integrated search-and-track beamsteering strategy matched to the radar channel uncertainty.