- Objective 1: C-ComRad that is mutually beneficial to both radar and communication systems: develop low-complexity transmit-receive schemes for the coexisting radar and multi-user communications under both cooperative and non-cooperative scenarios, including a) beamforming, b) channel estimation and c) interference avoidance techniques, to exploit known interference as useful signal power source, for the first time in the area.
- Objective 2: D-ComRad by dual-funcational ComRad system designs and optimisation: a) waveform design for radar detection that carries information, b) joint target detection and channel estimation, c) low-complexity transmit beamforming design for interference exploitation, d) signal recognition/classification using machine learning.
- Objective 3: To demonstrate the elementary function of ComRad design in a relevant environment: a) To develop an overarching system-level simulator that evaluates performance on a network level, and using standards-relevant transmission, b) elementary proof of concept software-defined-radio (SDR) demo using USRPs and LabVIEW to validate the developed CRSS approaches.
- WP1: Signal Processing for Coexisting Communication and Radar Systems (C-ComRad): This WP will consider the coexistence of MIMO communication and MIMO radar systems. To achieve Objective. 1, 3 tasks are designed as follows: T1.1 Interference Channel Estimation using Radar Signals as Pilots (Mon 1-Mon 4) Channel estimation approaches for acquiring the CSI of the interference channels will be designed using MIMO radar signals. The essential trade-off between the channel estimation and target detection will be investigated and revealed. T1.2 Power-efficient Transmit Beamforming Enabled by Interference Exploitation (Mon 5-Mon 7) In this task, we further consider the transmit beamforming at both radar and BS by using the CSI obtained from T1.1. The potential constructive interference power will be exploited to benefit both communication demodulation and radar target detection. T1.3 Receiving Techniques for Interference Mitigation: From Non-cooperation to Mutually Beneficial Cooperation (Mon 8-Mon 10) Receive beamforming techniques will be developed for both the non-cooperative and the cooperative cases.
- WP2: Signal Processing for Dual-functional Communication-Radar Systems (D-ComRad): This WP will develop signal processing approaches for D-ComRad system that can communicate with multiple users and detect multiple targets at the same time. To achieve Objective.2, 3 tasks are designed as follows: T2.1 Multi-functional Waveform Design for Target Detection, Channel Estimation and Communications (Mon 8-Mon 10) Design radar waveform that can perform channel estimation and communication by viewing the radar targets as virtual downlink users. The trade-off between the triple performance will be carefully studied. T2.2 Joint Symbol-level Transmit Beamforming using Manifold optimisation and Interference Exploitation (Mon 11-Mon 13) Advanced symbol-level beamforming approaches enabled by interference exploitation will be developed, where low-complexity manifold solvers will be employed for solving the corresponding optimisation problems. T2.3 Joint Receiving based on Signal Recognition and Classification: Machine Learning based Approaches (Mon 14-Mon 18) This task undertakes the receiver design for the D-ComRad system using machine learning for signal classification. Deliverable 3: Technical Report (Mon 17) Description of the signal processing approaches for the D-ComRad system.
- WP3:Demonstration and Verification for the Proposed CRSS Approaches: This WP will provide a proof of concept for the proposed transmit beamforming, receiver design and channel estimation techniques of Objective 1 and 2, both by system-level simulations and over-the-air transmissions. T3.1 System-Level Simulations for the Proposed CRSS Approaches (Mon 16-Mon 19) The signal processing techniques developed in WP1 and WP2 will be integrated and tested over standard-compatible system-level simulations. The simulation results will be compared with the analytic results obtained in WP1 and WP2 to validate the effectiveness of the proposed methods. T3.2 Basic Hardware Demo using USRP and LabVIEW: Proof of Concepts (Mon 20-Mon 24) A number of the proposed techniques will be tested on the existing equipment in UCL’s Aeroflex lab using USRP and the supporting software developed in LabVIEW as part of this task.