In this paper, a beampattern design method is proposed for the multi-input-multi-output (MIMO) dual-function radar-communication (DFRC) system with an interleaved array. To make full use of the whole aperture, first, the transmit array is partitioned into two interleaved subarrays, one is for radar and the other is for downlink communications. Then, both the radar waveform and communication beamformers are optimized by combining the null-space projection (NSP) method and cyclic approach (CA) to perform the coexistence of MIMO radar and downlink communications. In addition, the communication beampattern can be utilized to improve the detection performance. Finally, several numerical results are given to show the effectiveness of the proposed method.

dual-function radar-communication; transmit beampattern; interleaved array; MIMO