Millimeter-wave multi-port radar sensors for next generation autonomous intelligent cruise control systems

汽车雷达是自主智能巡航控制(AICC)系统的关键技术，特别是与视频、激光和超声波等替代传感器相比，它具有不受天气影响、直接获取距离和速度等固有优势。AICC系统将使司机保持安全距离，并在危急情况下发出警告，从而减轻司机的部分任务，使驾驶变得不那么费力，特别是在交通畅通的情况下。此外，雷达为车辆制造商提供了安装在塑料保险杠后面的款式优势。最近，76-77 GHz毫米波频段已在世界范围内分配给未经许可的车辆雷达系统。为了实现我们的研究目标，开发创新、准确和低成本的雷达传感器，两项主要任务是必不可少的：(I)新毫米波组件的设计、制造和特性；(Ii)新雷达系统架构和信号处理技术的设计和验证。毫米波雷达前端设计将利用我们的研究团队在毫米波制造技术和多端口技术方面的强大专业知识。这项技术将用于波坦纳阵列和下转换模块。集成天线阵列将使用多端口电路和四个贴片天线对有限扇区进行电子波束扫描。创新的多端口正交下变频技术由于其公认的相位测量精度，将提高雷达测量精度。此外，与传统的混频技术相比，毫米波本地振荡器的功率降低将获得很好的谐波和杂散抑制。与多端口外差结构相关的特定数字信号处理技术也将被开发出来，以获得精确的距离和速度测量，特别是在多目标环境中。

Automotive radar is a key technology for Autonomous Intelligent Cruise Control (AICC) systems, especiallydue to its inherent advantages like weather independence and direct acquisition of range and velocity whencompared to alternative sensors like video, laser and ultrasonic. The AICC systems will relieve the driver a partof his task by keeping him to a safe distance and warning him in critical situations, making driving lessstrenuous, especially in flowing traffic. Additionally, radar offers to the vehicle manufacturers the stylisticadvantage of mounting behind a plastic bumper.Recently the 76 - 77 GHz millimeter-wave band has been allocated world-wide to unlicensed vehicle radarsystems. Two main tasks are essential to achieve our research objective, the development of innovative,accurate and low-cost radar sensors: (i) the design, fabrication and characterisation of new millimeter-wavecomponents and (ii) the design and validation of new radar system architectures and signal processingtechniques.Millimeter-wave radar front-end design will take advantage of our research team strong expertise inmillimeter-wave fabrication techniques and multi-port technology. This technology will be used in bothantenna arrays and down-conversion modules. The integrated antenna array will perform an electronic beamscanning of a limited sector using a multi-port circuit and four patch antennas. The innovative multi-portquadrature down-conversion technique will improve radar measurement accuracy due to its recognized phasemeasurement precision. In addition, comparing to conventional mixing techniques, a very good suppression ofharmonics and spurious products will be obtained with a reduced millimeter-wave local oscillator power.Specific digital signal processing techniques related to the multi-port heterodyne architecture will be alsodeveloped to obtain accurate range and velocity measurements especially in a multi-target environment.