HARDWARE DEMO FOR MULTI-MISSION WAVEFORMS

The goal of this project is to develop and demonstrate multi-mission waveform capability. This will require addressing three aspects of the multi-mission radar: ¡ Advanced waveform design and generation ¡ Multi-mission waveform transmit and receive ¡ Processing for interference rejection and detection. Both sub-aperture and full-aperture approaches will be investigated. In the sub-aperture approach, a different orthogonal waveform is radiated from each sub-aperture simultaneously. All waveforms are received at each sub-aperture. In the full-aperture approach, orthogonal waveforms are radiated from the whole aperture simultaneously. In both cases multi-dimensional adaptive processing (spatial/beams, time/Doppler, waveform) is employed to reject interference, detect targets and/or form images. The full-aperture approach requires the development of a new waveform generation technique (Multiple Waveform Transmit/Receive) and a new T/R module (Hybrid T/R). A hardware proof-of-concept will be accomplished. A five-channel C-Band phased array will transmit simultaneous waveforms. The waveforms will be received and recorded in the far-field. The capability to independently radiate waveforms for the different missions in different directions will be demonstrated. A number of multiple waveform suites will be demonstrated to investigate the interference between the waveforms in the various dimensions (spatial, fast time/radar range, slow time/Doppler). A ground-based radar measurement for Phase II will be planned