System aspects and design of an automotive collision warning PN code radar using wavefront reconstruction

A collision avoidance system for automobiles to be used in freeways and similarly structured traffic environments is under study. The authors report on concepts, the state of realization and on first experimental results. A two-dimensional imaging problem has to be solved because the mere detection of objects in front of a vehicle is not sufficient; potential paths of collision can only be recognized by assigning objects to their surroundings. While digital wavefront reconstruction was used for angular discrimination, a high-resolution pseudonoise code radar applying a binary phase modulation to a continuous carrier has been implemented for longitudinal resolution. The laboratory evaluation has confirmed the specifications regarding essential system parameters such as radial resolution and sensitivity.<>