MIMO radar
Multiple transmitters emit independent waveforms. Multiple receivers capture all of them simultaneously. Virtual array elements equal Tx × Rx — so 16×16 hardware behaves like a 256-element array. Angular resolution explodes; antenna size stays small. Modern automotive radars are MIMO.
Deep-learning target classification
A CNN trained on millions of labelled radar returns can tell a quadcopter from a crow, a hatchback from a van, a Tomahawk from a decoy. The model learns features humans cannot articulate. The downside: it's a black box and adversarial waveforms can fool it.
Cognitive radar
The radar measures the environment, then chooses its own waveform — pulse width, bandwidth, modulation — to maximise information for the current scene. A storm? Use longer pulses. Jamming? Frequency hop. A new target type? Try a different chirp. The waveform becomes part of the loop.
Photonic and quantum frontiers
Optical signal processing breaks the ADC bottleneck. Quantum radar (covered separately) is still lab-scale. The next decade of breakthroughs will likely come from better software running on cheaper hardware, not exotic physics.