A millimeter-wave FMCW radar system simulator for automotive applications including nonlinear component models

A fully differential millimeter wave frequency modulated continuous wave (FMCW) radar architecture is built up in Agilent's RF design and system simulation environment ADS ® to investigate the influence of RF impairments on system level on the target signal. To take also the surroundings of the automotive scenario into account a 3D ray tracing channel simulator is coupled in a Matlab ® co-simulation providing realistic data of the traffic situation. Therefore investigations on the performance of the radar frontend in an automotive long range radar (LRR) application are enabled, the functionality of the circuitry can be verified and components designed in the most beneficial way, so that the best performance is achieved with the available resources. For nonlinear behavior the frontend components are parameterized according to recently published values for 77GHz SiGe circuits. The functionality of the complete simulation environment is demonstrated by calculating a typical traffic situation.