Practical Aspects of Cognitive Radar

In this paper we examine some of the practical aspects of implementing cognitive radar (CR) techniques onto software defined radar (SDRadar) platforms. These aspects include: 1) the response time (RT) of algorithms and components to determine latency bottlenecks, 2) autonomous regulation of the perception-action cycle (PAC) to determine “how fast the CR can interact with the environment” as well as “how fast the CR should interact with the environment,” and 3) regulation of the cognition level to understand how to select a particular CR technique appropriately for a given dynamically-changing environment. To provide concrete examples of these three implementation aspects for CR, we will focus on the specific application of target tracking in a congested spectral environment.