The automotive radar market is already a multi-billion dollar industry and is growing rapidly. Due to its capabilities for all weather and day-and-night operations, automotive radar can be used to provide multiple safety functions for a vehicle. It is also a key enabling technology for autonomous driving. With many vehicles equipped with automotive radars, however, this technology can become the victim of its own success, due to the inevitable mutual interferences among nearby radars. Moreover, the direct blast from the transmitter of one radar to the receiver of another radar is much stronger than the reflected signal from a pedestrian. Therefore, there is an urgent need to address mutual interference problems before too many vehicles and other automobiles are equipped with automotive radars. The goal of this project is to provide transformative solutions that are affordable, technically feasible, easy to apply, and consistent with the technological trends via exploiting the full potential of spectrum sharing in the automotive radar frequency bands.
This project involves advancing fundamental knowledge in new technologies for spectrum access in the automotive radar industry and applies engineering principles to address the needs of future automotive radar systems, while advancing engineering knowledge in multiple fronts. Specifically, this project involves investigating practically feasible and flexible probing waveforms for improved mutual interference suppression, devising advanced signal processing algorithms for enhanced automotive radar coexistence and improved resolution, enhancing spatial resolution and coexistence while reducing cost and power consumption through developing one-bit automotive radar receivers, and developing mutual cooperation strategies and signal processing algorithms by taking advantage of vehicle-to-vehicle communications so that automotive radar systems in close proximities can share sufficient information to form a multi-static multiple-input multiple-output radar network.
