Adaptive Main Lobe/Sidelobes Controls Selection in FDA based Joint Radar-Communication Design

In a dual function radar-communication (DFRC) design, the radar target is not always present in the surveillance region. Therefore, it is un-necessary to specify a design for searching the target, merely, with the high gain main lobe of beam pattern, while linking to a communication receiver with a side lobe of the pattern. In this paper, we propose an adaptive selection of high gain main lobe and side lobes controls of a frequency diverse array (FDA) generated beam pattern according to the changing situation for a joint radar-communication tracking application. That is, when the target is not detected in the surveillance region, high gain lobe of the beam pattern is used to link with a communication receiver to achieve improved directional communication and better bit error rate (BER). In the meanwhile, the target uncertainty information is utilized for identifying the surveillance area to be illuminated for searching a target. On the contrary, the proposed design is automated to work in a standard way. The proposed approach is verified by numerical results.