Adaptive OFDM Waveform Design for Cognitive Radar in Signal-Dependent Clutter

The problem of adaptive orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) waveform design in the case of stochastic extended targets in the presence of strong and nonstationary interferences is an essential part of a cognitive radar system. In this article, a new approach is developed based on maximizing the mutual information between the random target impulse response and the received echoes with respect to the transmitted waveform. We use the advantage of OFDM signals and present an adaptive structure to match the complex weights of OFDM signal with the radar scene for making complete use of the transmission power. The interference reflections are utilized rather than eliminating them to design the weights of the transmitted OFDM signal. The optimization algorithm for designing transmitted signals is based on adaptive learning whose essential information is obtained by a feedback between receiver and transmitter. This feedback includes essential target and interference characteristics which extracted from the reflected echoes. Based on changes in interference features, the weights of the transmitted OFDM signal on each subcarrier are designed and transmitted in the next coherent processing interval. Experimental results reveal that the proposed approach achieves a higher rate of performance compared to nonadaptive waveform design approaches.