Radar tracking waveform design in continuous space and optimization selection using differential evolution

Waveform design that allows for a wide variety of chirps has proven benefits. However, dictionary based optimization is limited and gradient search methods are often intractable. A new method is proposed using differential evolution (DE) to design cubic chirps with coefficients constrained to the three-dimensional (3D) unit sphere. Nonlinear functions sufficiently approximated by a third order Maclaurin series can be represented in this chirp space. Cascaded integrator methods for generating polynomial chirps allow for practical implementation in real world systems. While simplified tracking models and finite waveform dictionaries have information theoretic results, we explore two-dimensional (2D) tracking continuous waveform design in cluttered environments.