T09 — Spectrum engineering and waveform diversity

Summary form only given. The RF electromagnetic spectrum, extending from below 1 MHz to above 100 GHz, represents a precious resource. It is used for a wide range of purposes including communications, radio and television broadcasting, radio navigation, and sensing. Radar represents a fundamentally important use of the EM spectrum, in applications which include air traffic control, geophysical monitoring of Earth resources from space, automotive safety, severe weather tracking, and surveillance for defence and security. Nearly all services have a need for greater bandwidth. As the demand continues to grow for more access to spectrum by all these interested parties, there will be ever-greater competition for this finite resource. At the same time, modern digital signal processing techniques allow precise wide-bandwidth radar waveforms to be generated, with high spectral purity and whose properties can be varied adaptively, and this capability forms the basis of the subject of waveform diversity. The purpose of this tutorial, which is based on the work of NATO SET-179 and SET-182 Task Groups, is to describe and explain current work in spectrum engineering and waveform diversity.