This presentation was made at the NAFEMS Americas "Creating the Next Generation Vehicle" held on the 14th of November in Troy.

The automotive engineering community is now confronting the largest technology transformation since its inception. This includes the electrification of powertrains for more efficient consumption and cleaner emissions, the reinvention of the battery with fast wireless charging capabilities and finally the advent of a fully autonomous vehicle. Compounding to these technology changes, the automotive companies design verification process is moving away from a major reliance on physical testing to almost a full virtual simulation product verification process.

The automotive engineering community is now confronting the largest technology transformation since its inception. This includes the electrification of powertrains for more efficient consumption and cleaner emissions, the reinvention of the battery with fast wireless charging capabilities and finally the advent of a fully autonomous vehicle. Compounding to these technology changes, the automotive companies design verification process is moving away from a major reliance on physical testing to almost a full virtual simulation product verification process.

Resource Abstract

Recently, several cities around the world are being developed to operate as innovation hubs of what so called the connected smart cities. These cities are not only utilizing their streets’ infrastructure but also incorporating their transportation infrastructure to help monitor the backbone of the smart city and deliver tangible benefits in understanding the surrounding environment. Vehicle to Vehicle and Vehicle to Everything communication technologies were introduced to help estimating the maximum range across which the vehicles can reliably communicate using the Dedicated Short-Range Communications (DSRC) protocol operating at 5.9GHz. With that, future vehicles and street infrastructure systems will start interacting with each other by passing along messages regarding road conditions and traffic flow. Establishing a complete dynamic traffic information system can improve the overall city traffic coverage and performance while reducing the number of accidents and consequently the number of people injured at roads. The advent of autonomous vehicles will drive the need for multiple sensors, spanning microwave and millimetre wave radar, as well as visible and infra-red spectra. ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance System) and Autonomous vehicle systems are likely to require at least 6 radar systems to monitor traffic and to perform safety functions to ensure the safety of the passengers. In addition, these radars will be able to monitor road conditions; even locating and reporting potholes and debris on the road.



In line with these incentives is the increasing demand to study autonomous vehicles that will drive the need for multiple sensors, spanning microwave and millimetre wave radars, as well as visible and infra-red spectra. In the presented work, the design and optimization of mm-wave printed antenna array for autonomous vehicle radar application at 77GHz is demonstrated. Two design methodologies will be studies for Radar sub-array implementation using advanced feeding techniques at 77GHz. The complete design workflow will be uncovered to capture the different design stages and engineering challenges that radar antenna designers may face starting from the design of single antenna element to sub-array to complete channel modelling using different simulation techniques, parametric studies and optimization algorithms. In addition, modelling the installation effects of the radar sensor including the defocusing effect of bumpers, fascia and grills is also illustrated. Finally, the presented work will showcase a simulated scenario of a street intersection where TX/RX radar arrays are used. Both Range plots and Doppler-Range Mapping as well as radar post processing data are obtained for the used realistic scenario.