Automotive Radar — Applications and Technology Trends

Automotive radar has become a multi-billion dollar market, with most new vehicles being equipped with one or multiple radars. Applications range from basic distance-keeping to emergency braking, vulnerable road-user protection to high-resolution object detection and classification for autonomous driving. This wide range of applications is addressed starting with cost-optimized small sensors using a single SoC with only a few antenna channels, up to high performance sensors with hundreds or thousands of virtual antenna channels. To keep up with the increasing demands especially on range and angle measurement performance, new technologies are constantly being introduced. This includes antenna technology, highly integrated CMOS SoC devices, more complex digital modulation schemes like OFDM, as well as sensor networks using cooperative sensors or repeaters.