Power-Aware Cognitive Radar Multi-target Tracking Under Unknown Disturbances

Abstract

This work presents a cognitive radar (CR) framework designed to track multiple aircraft under unknown disturbances using massive multiple-input multiple-output (MMIMO) systems. Since uniform power allocation is suboptimal across varying signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs), we couple an adaptive waveform design driven by Partially Observable Monte Carlo Planning (POMCP). By assigning an independent POMCP tree to each target, the system efficiently predicts target states. These predictions inform a constrained optimization problem that actively directs transmit energy toward weaker targets while maintaining sufficient power for stronger ones. Results confirm that the proposed POMCP method improves the detection probability for low-SNR targets from 0.6 to nearly 0.9, and yields more accurate tracking of the weakest target than a non-adaptive orthogonal waveform or a cognitive uniform-power POMCP baseline.