Analysis of Processing Pipelines for Indoor Human Tracking using FMCW radar

In this paper, the problem of formulating effective processing pipelines for indoor human tracking is investigated, with the usage of a Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) Frequency Modulated Continuous Wave (FMCW) radar. Specifically, two processing pipelines starting with detections on the Range-Azimuth (RA) maps and the Range-Doppler (RD) maps are formulated and compared, together with subsequent clustering and tracking algorithms and their relevant parameters. Experimental results are presented to validate and assess both pipelines, using a 24 GHz commercial radar platform with 250 MHz bandwidth and 15 virtual channels. Scenarios where 1 and 2 people move in an indoor environment are considered, and the influence of the number of virtual channels and detectors' parameters is discussed. The characteristics and limitations of both pipelines are presented, with the approach based on detections on RA maps showing in general more robust results.

See Further Than CFAR: a Data-Driven Radar Detector Trained by Lidar

In this paper, we address the limitations of traditional constant false alarm rate (CFAR) target detectors in automotive radars, particularly in complex urban environments with multiple objects that appear as extended targets. We propose a data-driven radar target detector exploiting a highly efficient 2D CNN backbone inspired by the computer vision domain. Our approach is distinguished by a unique cross sensor supervision pipeline, enabling it to learn exclusively from unlabeled synchronized radar and lidar data, thus eliminating the need for costly manual object annotations. Using a novel large-scale, real-life multi-sensor dataset recorded in various driving scenarios, we demonstrate that the proposed detector generates dense, lidar-like point clouds, achieving a lower Chamfer distance to the reference lidar point clouds than CFAR detectors. Overall, it significantly outperforms CFAR baselines detection accuracy.

3D high-resolution imaging algorithm using 1D MIMO array for autonomous driving application

The problem of 3D high-resolution imaging in automotive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) side-looking radar using a 1D array is considered. The concept of motion-enhanced snapshots is introduced for generating larger apertures in the azimuth dimension. For the first time, 3D imaging capabilities can be achieved with high angular resolution using a 1D MIMO antenna array, which can alleviate the requirement for large radar systems in autonomous vehicles. The robustness to variations in the vehicle's movement trajectory is also considered and addressed with relevant compensations in the steering vector. The available degrees of freedom as well as the Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR) are shown to increase with the proposed method compared to conventional imaging approaches. The performance of the algorithm has been studied in simulations, and validated with experimental data collected in a realistic driving scenario.

Self-Supervised Learning for Enhancing Angular Resolution in Automotive MIMO Radars

A novel framework to enhance the angular resolution of automotive radars is proposed. An approach to enlarge the antenna aperture using artificial neural networks is developed using a self-supervised learning scheme. Data from a high angular resolution radar, i.e., a radar with a large antenna aperture, is used to train a deep neural network to extrapolate the antenna element's response. Afterward, the trained network is used to enhance the angular resolution of compact, low-cost radars. One million scenarios are simulated in a Monte-Carlo fashion, varying the number of targets, their Radar Cross Section (RCS), and location to evaluate the method's performance. Finally, the method is tested in real automotive data collected outdoors with a commercial radar system. A significant increase in the ability to resolve targets is demonstrated, which can translate to more accurate and faster responses from the planning and decision making system of the vehicle.

Generalized Matrix-Pencil Approach to Estimation of Complex Exponentials with Gapped Data

A generalized matrix-pencil approach is proposed for the estimation of complex exponential components with segmented signal samples, which is very efficient and provides super-resolution estimations. It is applicable to the signals sampled segmentally with the same sampling frequency and direction of arrival (DOA) estimation with distributed arrays within which array elements are placed uniformly with the same inter-element spacing.

Smoothed Phase-Coded FMCW: Waveform Properties and Transceiver Architecture

Smoothed phase-coded frequency modulated continuous waveform (SPC-FMCW), which is aimed to improve the coexistence of multiple radars operating within the same frequency bandwidth, is studied and the receiving strategy with a low ADC sampling requirement is investigated. The Gaussian filter is applied to obtain smooth phase transition, and the phase lag compensation is performed on transmitted phase code to enhance decoding. The proposed waveform is examined in different domains, and its waveform properties are analysed theoretically and demonstrated experimentally. Both the simulation and experimental results show that the introduced waveform with the investigated processing steps helps to combine all advantages of the FMCW waveform including hardware simplicity and small operational bandwidth of the receiver with advantages of the phase coding.

A Novel Approach to Vehicle Pose Estimation using Automotive Radar

This paper presents a set of novel scan-matching techniques for vehicle pose estimation using automotive radar measurements. The proposed approach modifies the Normal Distributions Transform (NDT) -- a state-of-the-art scan-matching SLAM technique, widely used in lidar-based localization -- to account for particular aspects of radar environment perception. First, the polar NDT (PNDT) is introduced by solving the NDT problem in the polar coordinate system, natural for radar measurements. A better agreement between the measurement uncertainties and their representation in the scan-matching algorithm is achieved. Second, the extension of PNDT to take into account the Doppler measurements -- Doppler polar NDT (DPNDT) -- is proposed. Third, the SNR of detected targets is added to the optimization procedure to minimize the impact of RCS fluctuation. The improvement over the conventional NDT is demonstrated in numerical simulations and real data processing, showing the ability to decrease the localization error by a factor of 3 to 5, depending on the scenario, with a negligible increase in computational complexity. Finally, a DPNDT extension with the capability to compensate angular bias in array beam-forming is presented. Simulation results and real data processing show the possibility to correct it with the accuracy of $0.1^\circ$ almost in real-time.

Interference Mitigation for FMCW Radar With Sparse and Low-Rank Hankel Matrix Decomposition

In this paper, the interference mitigation for Frequency Modulated Continuous Wave (FMCW) radar system with a dechirping receiver is investigated. After dechirping operation, the scattered signals from targets result in beat signals, i.e., the sum of complex exponentials while the interferences lead to chirp-like short pulses. Taking advantage of these different time and frequency features between the useful signals and the interferences, the interference mitigation is formulated as an optimization problem: a sparse and low-rank decomposition of a Hankel matrix constructed by lifting the measurements. Then, an iterative optimization algorithm is proposed to tackle it by exploiting the Alternating Direction of Multipliers (ADMM) scheme. Compared to the existing methods, the proposed approach does not need to detect the interference and also improves the estimation accuracy of the separated useful signals. Both numerical simulations with point-like targets and experiment results with distributed targets (i.e., raindrops) are presented to demonstrate and verify its performance. The results show that the proposed approach is generally applicable for interference mitigation in both stationary and moving target scenarios.