Dual-function radar-communications using phase-rotational invariance

In this paper, we develop a new technique for dual-function radar-communications in a transmit multi-sensor array where information embedding is achieved using phase-rotational invariance. A sequence of Q bits is first mapped into a dictionary of 2^Q phase rotations. Then, one pair of transmit orthogonal waveforms is used in tandem with 2^Q pairs of transmit beamforming weight vectors for embedding a certain entry of the phase-rotation dictionary during each radar pulse. The same pair of waveforms is used during all pulses while the pair of transmit beamforming weight vectors changes from pulse to pulse based on which entry of the phase-rotation dictionary is embedded. During each pulse, the receiver detects the embedded phase rotation and employ it to decipher the transmitted bit sequence. The proposed information embedding technique is angle-dependant and, therefore, the communication process is inherently secure against interception from directions other than the desired communication direction. The performance of the proposed technique is investigated in terms of the bit error rate (BER).