A proposed concept for metacognitive configuration switching for tracking radar systems

Target tracking has become more complicated as radar operating environments have become increasingly congested with clutter, interference, and countermeasures for jamming of radio frequency (RF) signals. As a result, the accuracy and performance of target tracking radars are further degraded. Three configurations of radar systems, namely, monostatic radar, bistatic radar, and passive radar, are commonly used today. The most conventional one is the monostatic radar defined by a co-located transmitter and receiver. In the bistatic radar system, the radar transmitter and receiver are physically separated by a large distance. A passive radar system is a derivative of the bistatic radar system, wherein radar functions are performed without the use of one’s own transmitter. Instead, existing signals-of-opportunity (SOP) within the RF environment are opportunistically exploited to perform the radar functions. This paper presents a concept based on metacognition which entails dynamically switching the mode of operation between the three radar configurations to optimize target tracking accuracy. The paper provides an overview of the three radar configurations followed by the description of an approach for switching radar configuration among the three radars. Modeling and simulation of a passive radar system for target tracking in MATLAB is presented and followed by analysis and discussion of its performance.