Research Projects

Increase in demand for higher data rates has started the quest for efficient bandwidth usage. It is identified in recent years that the bandwidth allocated to radars can be used for communications. However, the detection and ranging capabilities of the radar shall not be rendered. Researchers have proposed majorly three methodologies starting from co-existence where both radar and communication systems exist independently and operate simultaneously at same bandwidth. Such a co-existence system need interference management. More recently, a concept of dual function radar communication system is proposed where same signal is used from same hardware platform for both radar and communications usage, thereby no need for interference management and no spectrum congestion happens. Although this concept of dual function radar communication systems come up with a nice solution for efficient bandwidth usage it has its own challenges in terms of optimal signal design useful for both radar and communication and security challenges. In particular, this project deals with the security challenges of dual function radar communication system. One particular scenario of dual function radar communication with security challenge is that the radar target itself can be an eavesdropper trying to tap the information intended for a communication user. Another scenario can be that there can be an independent eavesdropper trying to tap information apart from the radar target. Such problems have to be solved in various scenarios of downlink single-user, multi-user, uplink etc. Once such problems are solved a few of them have to be validated using field programmable gate array based radios for paving a way for future generation test beds.