Microwave Doppler sensors for terrestrial transportation applications

In order to increase the safety of intelligent road vehicles of the future and to automate their driving, priority is being given to help systems for drivers. One critical need is the determination of real-time information about the instantaneous motion of the vehicles. Small-sized, low-cost, low-time constant, low-power consumption, contactless microwave sensors are well suited to these applications and give reliable measures in the real-time domain. A K-band Doppler sensor has been developed both in hybrid and monolithic technology. For both the X-band and K-band sensors, printed microstrip flat patch antennas were used. Some experimental results obtained both in the laboratory and on vehicles with some different experimental integrated Doppler radar are provided. The performance are compared at 10 and 24 GHz.