MIMO Multifunction RF Systems: Detection Performance and Waveform Design

TL;DR

This paper investigates the detection performance of MIMO multifunction RF systems supporting radar, communication, and jamming, proposing waveform design algorithms to optimize SINR under practical constraints and analyzing the tradeoffs involved.

Contribution

It introduces a closed-form solution for SINR maximization with energy constraints and an efficient algorithm for constant-modulus waveform design in MIMO multifunction RF systems.

Findings

MIMO systems enhance detection performance with increased SINR.

The proposed waveform design improves SINR under practical constraints.

Tradeoffs exist between radar detection and communication/jamming functionalities.

Abstract

This paper studies the detection performance of a multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) multifunction radio frequency (MFRF) system, which simultaneously supports radar, communication, and jamming. We show that the detection performance of the MIMO MFRF system improves as the transmit signal-to-interference-plus-noise-ratio (SINR) increases. To analyze the achievable SINR of the system, we formulate an SINR maximization problem under the communication and jamming functionality constraint as well as a transmit energy constraint. We derive a closed-form solution of this optimization problem for energy-constrained waveforms and present a detailed analysis of the achievable SINR. Moreover, we analyze the SINR for systems transmitting constant-modulus waveforms, which are often used in practice. We propose an efficient constant-modulus waveform design algorithm to maximize the SINR. Numerical results demonstrate the capability of a MIMO array to provide multiple functions, and also show the tradeoff between radar detection and the communication/jamming functionality.