This paper investigates a novel design for joint radar-communication (JRC) waveform, which is capable of improving the network’s performance by solving the phase shift mutation of the Chirp-BPSK waveform. We aim for jointly designing chirp waveform and improving Binary Phase Shift Keying (BPSK), as well as the hybrid chaotic spread spectrum code (CSSC). As a benefit, the JRC waveform can be successfully decoded, and the accumulation of phase shift can be suppressed by hybrid CSSC. The detailed deduction on the short-time Fourier transform (STFT) of the JRC waveform is adopted to analyse the complicated AF characters. Our analytical results demonstrate that the proposed JRC signal has superior spectrum performance, ambiguity function (AF), and transmission rate than conventional Chirp and Chirp-BPSK waveform. Numerical results are provided to confirm that (i) the proposed waveform is capable of providing better communication and radar performance; (ii) the performance of AF is not affected by the transmission rate for the proposed waveform.

In this paper, we propose a multi-beam integrated radar and communication scheme using phased-array antenna, in which the same LFM-BPSK integrated waveform is used for both the radar and the communication beams. In the integrated beam design, the radar beam is periodically scanned in different directions for detection, and the communication beam is periodically manipulated in one direction for communication. The system’s beamforming uses adaptive beamforming technology to achieve radar echoes and communication reception. For the LFM-BPSK integrated waveform used by the system, we propose a method for estimating parameters during communication reception. Through simulation, the proposed beam-pattern design, adaptive beamforming, and parameter estimation scheme can achieve radar and communication functions using phased-array antennas.

The existing joint radar-communication (JRC) based on linear frequency modulation (LFM) is imperfect because of high autocorrelation sidelobe and poor nearby target detection performance. This paper proposes a JRC signal based on the non-LFM (NLFM) wave by using minimum shift keying (MSK). Then, this paper analyzes the performance of ambiguity function (AF) characteristics, detection probability, time-frequency characteristics, and communication rate for the proposed JRC signal. It is concluded that the proposed JRC signal has both excellent radar and communication characteristics. Under the condition of low data volume, the simulation results illustrate that (i) compared with the existing LFM-MSK signal, our JRC signal’s sidelobe level of the time AF is significantly lower; the range resolution is improved significantly; (ii) the proposed JRC signal has no loss on velocity resolution and detection probability; and (iii) the proposed JRC signal has excellent time-frequency characteristics.

The problem of orthogonal waveform construction in multiple input/multiple output (MIMO) radar communication integration greatly limits the realization of integration technology. In the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) MIMO antenna scenario, an orthogonal integrated waveform suitable for a MIMO antenna is designed using a sub−LFM−BPSK waveform combined with a chaotic spread spectrum code. After spread spectrum processing, each MIMO antenna transmits different communication data for orthogonal spread spectrum processing, which is suitable for the omnidirectional detection of MIMO application scenarios; moreover, the closed-form expressions of the integrated orthogonal waveform under certain constraints are derived. Finally, the simulation proves that the integrated orthogonal waveform set in the UAV MIMO scenario has excellent radar detection and communication capabilities.