Millimeter-wave Automotive Radar using Extrapolation for Improved Angular Resolution

Automotive engineers are repeatedly faced with the issue of choosing radars with the best angular resolution while having reduced processing times. In this paper, a novel extrapolation method is presented to estimate the amplitudes and phases for virtual antenna elements at the receiver periphery. This method has shown to resolve two targets where the (real) baseline receiver antenna cannot. Furthermore, a comparison study is provided which considers different extrapolation methods that can be applied to the system. Together with other techniques for improving resolution, such as Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) radars, beamsteering for increased power distribution, and compressed sensing for optimising sampling requirements, a radar system based on the fusion of these techniques can provide a powerful new platform which can fast process and accurately detect targets.