One-Bit Sigma-Delta DFRC Waveform Design: Using Quantization Noise for Radar Probing

TL;DR

This paper introduces a Sigma-Delta modulation-based waveform design for one-bit MIMO-DFRC systems, utilizing quantization noise for radar probing, and offers an efficient solution that balances radar and communication performance.

Contribution

It proposes a novel Sigma-Delta modulation scheme for one-bit MIMO-DFRC waveform design that exploits quantization noise for radar probing, reducing computational complexity.

Findings

Effective radar probing using quantization noise.

Balanced performance in radar and downlink precoding.

Efficient waveform design via constrained least squares.

Abstract

Dual-functional radar-communication (DFRC) signal design has received much attention lately. We consider the scenario of one-bit massive multi-input multi-output (MIMO) wherein one-bit DACs are employed for the sake of saving hardware costs. Specifically, a spatial Sigma-Delta $(\Sigma\Delta)$ modulation scheme is proposed for one-bit MIMO-DFRC waveform design. Unlike the existing approaches which require large-scale binary optimization, the proposed scheme performs $\Sigma\Delta$ modulation on a continuous-valued DFRC signal. The subsequent waveform design is formulated as a constrained least square problem, which can be efficiently solved. Moreover, we leverage quantization noise for radar probing purposes, rather than treating it as unwanted noise. Numerical results demonstrate that the proposed scheme performs well in both radar probing and downlink precoding.