Implementation of antenna space and beam diversities in a K band FMCW radar system for the short‐range vehicular detections

Abstract

This paper presents the design of a frequency‐modulated continuous wave (FMCW) radar system for the short‐range vehicle detections at K band. The antenna system employs phased arrays to control the radiation patterns to simplify the signal process complexity, which are implemented separately for the transmitter (TX) and receiver (RX), respectively. In particular, the space and angular beam diversities are implemented for RX channels to enhance the detection accuracy. The system is implemented at 24.125 GHz with a bandwidth of 250 MHz, which is used to realize a linear frequency modulation with a TX power of 1 mW. The detection is determined by considering the peak values of signal responses obtained by performing the fast Fourier transform over the signals received by the two RX channels. In this paper, the system architecture is first overviewed, the antenna designs are afterward presented to show their radiation characteristics, and finally, the system is experimentally examined to demonstrate the feasibility.

Effectiveness of Moving Signal‐Average Method in K Band FMCW Radar for Short‐Range Vehicle Detection Using Antennas With Narrow Beam Widths

“…Experimental results based on the implementation of MSAM in a FMCW radar system (Chou & Chang, ) are presented to exhibit the characteristics of VUD detection applications. Similar to the numerical simulation, two cases of antennas radiating broad and narrow beams are employed for the comparison of examination.…”

“…The structures of broad‐ and narrow‐beam antennas, where the horizontal beam widths are 18 and 7°, respectively (Chou & Chang, ). In both cases, the RX antennas' radiations are horizontally titled by 10° in the opposite sides.…”

“…Experimental scenario of a vehicle under detection (Chou & Chang, ), where the prototype is shown on the top right corner. The antenna arrays are on the center of the prototype.…”

“…Details of the radar system are found in Stove (1992) and Suo et al (2014). Detailed parameters of this experimental system are found in Chou and Chang (2017) and are omitted here for brevity. Figure 10.…”

“…The detection of moving vehicles in the short range of a K band frequency-modulated continuous wave (FMCW) radar (Currie & Brown, 1987;Sun et al, 2014) is investigated. The work has potential applications for the roadside side-looking vehicle detection (Chou & Chang, 2017;Inomata et al, 2000), vehicle-to-vehicle anticollision warning system (Yurong et al, 2009), traffic monitor (Seehausen, 1984), security surveillance radar (Appleby & Anderton, 2007), and so on. In these applications, high-frequency radar systems are advantageous for its high detection resolution by using a broader bandwidth and its shorter propagation distances to reduce long-range multipath interferences.…”