Towards simultaneous radar and spectral sensing

DARPA´s Shared Spectrum Access for Radar and Communications (SSPARC) program seeks to improve radar and communications capabilities through spectrum sharing. Spectrum sensing is an integral component of this vision. For example, a spectrally-agile military radar system could adapt the frequency bands it uses according to the sensed spectrum. Currently, radar transmission and spectrum sensing must be multiplexed in time. That is to say, sensing the use of a particular frequency band is only possible during time slices where the radar is inactive in that band. In this paper, we describe how emerging Simultaneous Transmit and Receive (STAR) technology could be evolved to support simultaneous radar and spectrum sensing. We review the state-of-the-art in STAR technology and identify the key challenges associated with achieving contemporaneous radar operation and spectrum sensing on the same platform.