Based on the cognitive radar concept and the basic connotation of cognitive skywave over-the-horizon radar(SWOTHR), the system structure and information processingmechanism about cognitive SWOTHR are researched. Amongthem, the hybrid network system architecture which is thedistributed configuration combining with the centralized cognition and its soft/hardware framework with the sense-detectionintegration are proposed, and the information processing framebased on the lens principle and its information processing flowwith receive-transmit joint adaption are designed, which buildand parse the work law for cognition and its self feedback adjustment with the lens focus model and five stages informationprocessing sequence. After that, the system simulation andthe performance analysis and comparison are provided, whichinitially proves the rationality and advantages of the proposedideas. Finally, four important development ideas of futureSWOTHR toward "high frequency intelligence information processing system" are discussed, which are scene information fusion, dynamic reconfigurable system, hierarchical and modulardesign, and sustainable development. Then the conclusion thatthe cognitive SWOTHR can cause the performance improvement is gotten.
