Communications under the Constraint of de-chirp Channel Distortion

We analyze the effects of radar stretch processing on a system that jointly receives communications waveforms and radar waveforms. This effort is motivated by the growing interest in RF convergence, for which spectrum is cooperatively used for multiple functions simultaneously. In this paper, we first introduce and motivate the use of chirp radar waveforms and review stretch processing for radar applications. We then consider communications signaling under the constraint of a stretch processing radar receiver that de-chirps pulses at the first stage of the processing chain. Since it may not be possible in some systems to perform communications reception prior to the de-chirp processing block, we analyze the effects of de-chirp processing as part of the communications channel.