Impact of the antenna fidelity pattern on waveform design and spectrum sharing

There is an intense effort underway to mitigate the acute effects of spectral crowding. One such spectrum engineering effort seeks to apply waveform diversity to enable radars to avoid interference and adapt their spectral utilization. This approach hinges on waveform adaptation and optimization that requires accurate knowledge of hardware induced distortions. However, the distortion effects of antennas and arrays are often overlooked. In this paper, Ultra Wideband (UWB) antenna characterization techniques are applied to a radar slotted waveguide array to illustrate these angle dependent distortion effects even for non-UWB antennas. Utilizing hardware induced distortion for waveform adaptation and optimization could increase the ability of systems to directionally share spectrum.