STTR Phase I: Novel Radar Using 3D Printed Luneburg Lens for Autonomous Transportation

该项目的更广泛影响/商业潜力是显著的。研究成果将解决城市场景等复杂环境下自动驾驶的分辨率和检测速度要求。毫无疑问，交通运输的下一次重大革命是自动驾驶，它将在安全性、移动性和相关生产力方面带来巨大的潜在利益。随着先进的传感系统和智能算法的提出，预计未来的自动驾驶汽车可以消除由于人为错误而导致的错误，这是交通事故的主要原因。此外，它还可以减少交通堵塞，提高能源效率，大大增强老年人和残疾人的流动性。这项计划也将产生巨大的商业影响。2015年，全球汽车毫米波市场规模（30？300 GHz）雷达约19.36亿美元;预计2016年将达到24.6亿美元，2020年将达到51.2亿美元，在电子产品领域具有最显著的增长潜力。此外，预期的研究成果可能会导致一些重要市场领域的进步，包括无线通信，传感，移动的互联网，辅助技术和增材制造。这个小企业技术转让（STTR）第一阶段项目试图使用3D打印的Luneburg透镜实现高性能汽车雷达，用于自动驾驶。现有的汽车雷达产品没有足够的角度覆盖和分辨率来分类和定位密集的目标，这对于实现自动驾驶至关重要。因此，目前的自动驾驶测试使用的激光雷达系统价格昂贵，可靠性低于雷达，特别是在某些条件下，如大雨，雪，雾，烟雾和沙尘暴。与传统的制造技术相比，该项目利用3D打印技术，这是更方便，快速，廉价，能够实现毫米波Luneburg透镜。基于卢内堡的透镜？由于该透镜具有形成高增益和宽带特性的多波束的能力，将通过在透镜周围安装雷达探测器来设计新型汽车雷达。此外，利用Luneburg透镜的宽带宽和自然波束形成能力，提出了一种自适应感知方法，以提高扫描效率并避免来自附近或入侵雷达系统的干扰。通过这些方法，我们的目标是实现一个高性能和低成本的毫米波传感系统，这将是适合于自主交通应用。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this project is significant. The research results will address the resolution and detection speed requirements of autonomous driving in complex environments such as urban scenarios. The next major revolution of transportation is undoubtedly autonomous driving which will bring great potential benefits in terms of safety, mobility and related productivity. With the proposed advanced sensing system and intelligent algorithms, it is expected that future autonomous driving vehicle could eliminate mistakes due to human error which is the main cause of traffic accidents. Moreover, it may lead to reduced traffic jam, higher energy efficiency and much enhanced mobility for the aging and disabled population. The proposed effort will also have great commercial impact. In 2015, the global market size of automotive millimeter wave (30 ? 300 GHz) radars hit about $1.936 billion; it is expected to reach $2.46 billion in 2016 and $5.12 billion in 2020, having the most remarkable growth potentials in the field of electronic products. In addition, the expected research outcome may lead to advancement in a number of important market sectors including wireless communication, sensing, mobile internet, assistive technology, and additive manufacturing. This Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase I project attempts to realize a high performance automotive radar using 3D printed Luneburg Lens for autonomous driving. The existing automotive radar products do not have enough angular coverage and resolution for classifying and locating dense targets, which is critical for achieving autonomous driving. As a result, the current autonomous driving tests utilize LiDAR systems which are expensive and less reliable than radar especially under certain conditions such as heavy rain, snow, fog, smoke and sandstorms. Compared to conventional manufacturing techniques, this project utilizes 3D printing technique, which is much more convenient, fast, inexpensive and capable of implementing millimeter wave Luneburg lenses. Based on the Luneburg lens?s ability to form multiple beams with high gain and broadband behavior, novel automotive radar will be designed by mounting radar detectors around the lens. Moreover, with wide bandwidth and natural beam forming capabilities of Luneburg lens, an adaptive sensing approach is proposed to improve the scanning efficiency and avoid interference from nearby or intruder radar systems. With these proposed approaches, the objective is to achieve a high performance and low cost millimeter-wave sensing system which will be suitable for autonomous transportation applications.