Real-Time Experimental Demonstration and Evaluation of Open-Air Sense-and-Notch Radar

Recent work demonstrated closed-loop results for a real-time cognitive sense-and-notch radar capability via software-defined radio (SDR). The subsequent software-defined radar (SDRadar) generates spectrally shaped random FM (RFM) waveforms on-the-fly containing transmit spectral notches according to fast frequency assessments of other users in the band. Here we demonstrate the final cognitive evaluation step in which the sense-and-notch SDRadar operates in real-time in an open-air setting, performing moving target indication (MTI) processing (except for clutter cancellation) in the presence of a dynamically hopping interferer. This implementation is shown to support pulse repetition frequencies (PRFs) up to 4.4 kHz, meaning new interference-responsive waveforms can be produced at that rate, while achieving a transmit notch depth of 25 dB relative to peak power (greater depth is possible with additional computational resources).