Velocity ambiguity resolution for wideband automotive millimeter wave radar: a carrier frequency multiplexing framework

Abstract

Wideband millimeter-wave (mmWave) radars perform sensing for automotive applications. For the velocity ambiguity in automotive mmWave radars, a resolution scheme is proposed via exploiting carrier frequency multiplexing. Compared with conventional auxiliary signal-based schemes, the proposed scheme only needs one set of main frequency modulated continuous wave (FMCW) signal. After collecting a part of the main signal as the sub-signal, the ambiguity is resolved via using the carrier-frequency difference between these two signals, resulting in higher time utilization efficiency. Meanwhile, the target information from the main signal is utilized to calculate the discrete Fourier transform (DFT) coefficient and a two-dimensional DFT is performed on the sub-signal for the ambiguity resolution. Thus, the procedures including fast Fourier transform (FFT), detection and estimation for the auxiliary signal in conventional schemes are avoided, which reduces the computational complexity. Simulations verify the effectiveness of the proposed scheme.

Keywords:

• Radar
• millimeter wave
• velocity ambiguity
• resolution
• frequency multiplexing

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Cheng Zhang  http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2663-4207

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Cheng Zhang

Cheng Zhang received the BEng degree from Sichuan University, Chengdu, China, in June 2009, the MSc from Xi’an Electronic Engineering Research Institute (EERI), Xi’an, China, in May 2012, and the PhD degree from Southeast University, Nanjing, China, in Dec. 2018. From June 2012 to Aug. 2013, he was a Radar Signal Processing Engineer with Xi’an EERI. From Nov. 2016 to Nov. 2017, he was a Visiting Student with the University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada. He is currently an assistant professor in Southeast University (SEU), and supported by the Zhishan Young Scholar program of SEU. He won the excellent Doctoral Dissertation of CHINA EDUCATION SOCIETY OF ELECTRONICS in Dec. 2019. His research interests include space-time signal processing and machine learnings for MIMO wireless communication and radar systems.

Mengde Cao

Mengde Cao was born in Xuzhou, China in 1994. He received the BEng degree in communication engineering from the Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu, China, in June 2016. He has been working toward the MSc degree at Southeast University, Nanjing, China, since September 2016. His research interests include radar signal processing and learning algorithm in radar signal and data processing.

Yang Li

Yang Li received the BS degree from Southeast University, Nanjing, China, in 2017. He is currently pursuing the MS degree in information and communication engineering with the School of Information Science and Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing. His current research interest is automotive millimeter wave radar signal processing.

Yuqin Gong

Yuqin Gong received the BEng degree from Nanjing University of Science and Technology, Nanjing, China, in June 2016. She has been working toward the MSc degree at Southeast University, Nanjing, China, since September 2016. Her research interests include radar signal processing and target tracking in radar data processing.

Yongming Huang

Yongming Huang received the BS and MS degrees from Nanjing University, China, in 2000 and 2003, respectively. In 2007 he received the PhD degree in electrical engineering from Southeast University, China. Since March 2007 he has been a faculty in the School of Information Science and Engineering, Southeast University, China, where he is currently a full professor. During 2008–2009, Dr Huang was visiting the Signal Processing Lab, Electrical Engineering, Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Stockholm, Sweden. His current research interests include MIMO wireless communications, cooperative wireless communications and millimeter wave wireless communications. He has published over 200 peer-reviewed papers, hold over 60 invention patents. He submitted around 20 technical contributions to IEEE standards, and was awarded a certificate of appreciation for outstanding contribution to the development of IEEE standard 802.11aj.