Cost function design for the fully adaptive radar framework

Abstract

By emulating the neuropsychological processes underpinning animal cognition, the field of cognitive radar seeks to improve performance compared to non‐adaptive systems. The fully adaptive radar (FAR) framework is an application agnostic means of implementing the perception–action cycle in radars. This work proposes a method of designing the FAR framework's component cost functions inspired by the field of multi‐objective optimisation. As an illustration, the general cost functions were used to implement waveform adaptation for single target tracking. Both simulated and experimental results demonstrated how altering the cost functions can tailor the FAR performance to specific radar operating modes.