Monostatic RCS Measurements of Representative Road Traffic Objects in the 76 … 81 GHz Frequency Band

Quantitative knowledge of the radar cross-section of road traffic objects is a critical input for the design and performance evaluation of automotive radar systems in terms of target detection, discrimination, and tracking. Moreover, it has to be emulated accurately when applied in an over-the-air/vehicle-in-the-loop (OTA/ViL) based verification and validation method. Therefore, it is essential to measure RCS patterns of traffic objects under conditions with separable influence of ground reflections and minimized background artefacts. Given that in publicly available literature there are few reports of high-quality RCS data of representative targets like passenger car, bicycle and powered two-wheeler (PTW), measured over the entire frequency band between 76 GHz and 81 GHz, we have performed wideband RCS measurements for both horizontal and vertical co-polarizations. The measurements were performed in a semi-anechoic chamber and analysed with advanced post-processing for improving the accuracy of the measured data. Additional post-processing in time domain was performed to obtain two-dimensional contour plots of scattering locations. Results are presented in three data domains: frequency, statistical distribution, and time-domain 2D contour images, to deliver data for improved radar-based target classification. The impact of polarization is also discussed.