Editorial: Introduction to the Issue on Joint Communication and Radar Sensing for Emerging Applications

The papers in this special section focuses on the exploitation of the radar spectrum for use of commercial wireless communication, as well as emerging applications requiring joint communication and sensing designs. The integration of radar and communication systems has recently attracted a lot of research and commercial interest. The emergence of spectrum-hungry applications have necessitated the exploitation of the permanently allocated, but potentially under-utilized spectral resources, and sharing the frequency bands between radar and communication systems has attracted substantial attention. Below 10 GHz, a large portion of spectral resources are primarily allocated to radar systems, which have seen increasing cohabitation with wireless communication systems. At the higher frequencies such as the millimeter-wave bands, the communication and radar platforms are also expected to coexist harmoniously. Nevertheless, with the allocation of the available frequency bands to the above wireless technologies, the interference in the radar bands is on the rise, and has raised concerns both from governmental and military organizations for the safeguarding of critical radar operations. With achieving spectral coexistence as one of its goals, research effort is well underway to address the issue of the spectral coexistence of communication and radar. Recognising the opportunities arising beyond coexistence, there has been a recent surge in research in designing joint communication and radar (JCR) systems, that go beyond managing interference between the two transmissions, to designing multi-functional transmissions that simultaneously serve the sensing and the communications functionalities.