This invention is related to a cognitive Multi-Input Multi-Output (MIMO) radio frequency (or laser) radar with large-area synchronized multi-dimensional hopping spread spectrum and Interference-Free Windows (IFWs) for autonomous vehicles comprising of (1) analog component; (2) digital baseband component; (3) multi-dimensional hopping code generator; (4) large-area time synchronization; (5) cooperative IFW; and (6) cognitive engine. The new MIMO radar can provide interference-free environmental perception intelligently by the multi-dimensional IFWs formulated by beat-frequency hopping, beat-time hopping, discrete sequence (DS), cooperative IFW, array processing, and image denoising and fusion, etc. This invention increases the frequency efficiency greatly, and be applied to autonomous vehicles and robotics under sparse, dense, mixed autonomous and human driving, or completely autonomous driving environments.