Automotive technology today is focusing on autonomous vehicle development. The
sensors for these systems include radars due to their robustness against adverse
weather conditions such as rain, fog, ash or snow. In this constant search for advancement, high resolution systems play a central role in target detection and avoidance. In this PhD project, these methods have been researched and engineered to
leverage the best radar resolution for collision avoidance systems.
The first part of this thesis will focus on the existing systems consisting of the
state-of-the-art at the time of writing and explain what makes a high resolution
radar and how it can cover the whole field of view. The second part will focus on
how a non-uniform sparse radar system was simulated, developed and benchmarked
for improved radar performance up to 40% better than conventional designs. The
third part will focus on signal processing techniques and how these methods have
achieved high resolution and detection: large virtual aperture array using Multiple
Input Multiple Output (MIMO) systems, beampattern multiplication to improve
side-lobe levels and compressive sensing. Also, the substrate-integrated waveguide
(SIW) antennas which have been fabricated provide a bandwidth of 1.5GHz for the
transmitter and 2GHz at the receiver. This has resulted in a range resolution of 10
cm. The four part of this thesis presents the measurements which have been carried
out at the facilities within Heriot-Watt University and also at Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research (TNO). The results were better than expected
since a two transmitter four receiver system was able to detect targets which have
been separated at 2.2◦
in angle in the horizontal plane. Also, compressive sensing was used as a high resolution method for obtaining fine target detection and
in combination with the multiplication method showed improved detection performance with a 20 dB side-lobe level suppression. The measurement results from the
6-months placements are presented and compared with the state-of the art, revealing that the developed radar is comparable in performance to high-grade automotive
radars developed in the industry
