On the channel capacity of MIMO-radar-based communications

Radar self-communication makes full use of the radar hardware resource and spectrum to fulfill the communication. As MIMO radar has become the new generation radar technology to be actively studied, MIMO radar self-communication and its capability are plausible to be investigated. The baseband models of MIMO radar and MIMO radar self-communication are set up, and radar mutual information is used to evaluate the radar performance. The optimal MIMO radar waveforms are derived to avoid the situation that the radar performance is degraded when the baseband waveform is modulated by the communication symbols. The channel capacity of radar self-communication is investigated under three situations, that is, without considering the radar performance, without channel state knowledge, and on condition that the optimal radar mutual information being guaranteed. Simulations show that the channel capacity of radar self-communication endures no loss in the high SNR region.