The Role of Cognition in Radar Sensing

The paper is aimed at discussing the role of cognition in radar sensing providing a system level point of view. In this respect some fundamental issues are considered involving transmitter, receiver, signal and data processing units. Firstly, the definition of the cognitive radar concept is provided and its key aspects are pinpointed. Secondly, the role played by the perception-action cycle and the awareness gleaned by dynamic databases and/or sensing networks is emphasized. Hence the application of the cognitive paradigm for radar operation in spectrally crowded environments is discussed and an example with the use of real hardware is shown. Finally a glimpse on the role of cognition in agile tracking systems is given.