Implementation of Wide Angle FoV Radar Module for ADAS Systems

In this study, we propose the wide field of view (FoV) radar module for autonomous vehicles. The proposed wide FoV radar (WFR) module was constructed using of an RF module comprising wide beamwidth microstrip patch antennas, an AWR1642 radar sensor chip, and a control module. To achieve a wide FoV of 150° using the fabricated radar module, the 3-dB beamwidth characteristic of the applied microstrip patch antenna had to wider than 150°. The patch antenna was designed using a comb-line structure along 10-by-1 array structure, each radiator characterized by a shorted patch structure, such as a planar inverted-F antenna. The designed antenna was then fabricated on the same board surface as the sensor chip. To identify the characteristics of the implemented radar module, a trihedral corner reflector with a radar-cross-section of 180 m2 was used as the reflector target, and the CA-CFAR (cell averaging constant false alarm rate) target detection algorithm was applied. The measurement results, showed good detection performance of the radar in the view angle of 150°, from -75° to +75°, and a broad bandwidth of 4 GHz in the 77–81 GHz millimeter band. Therefore, the proposed WFR is applicable for used in blind spot detection sensors in autonomous vehicles.