Peak Sidelobe Level Based Waveform Optimization for OFDM Joint Radar-Communications

We propose a novel joint radar communication waveform design method based on OFDM spectrum allocation to trade off radar and communication performance. The proposed approach combines the water filling optimization to maximize the communication rate for slow fading channels with windowing to reduce pulse compression peak sidelobe level (PSL) for the radar. A trade-off between communication and radar performance is demonstrated by modifying the constraints of the optimization problem. The results show that, depending on the channel response, the proposed optimization method can significantly reduce PSL with limited impact on the data rate.