Wi-Fi Signal Processing for Automotive Doppler Radar: Feasibility and Implementation

In recent years, there has been growing research into the field of Wi-Fi radar signal processing for dual radar-communication purposes. Combining these two features enables cost savings to vehicle manufacturers by lowering the design complexity, while also saving precious radio frequency spectrum. This work presents a feasibility study and a hardware implementation of a Doppler radar that operates on the IEEE 802.11p Wi-Fi packets. A 5-MHz OFDM modem that adheres closely to the 802.11p PHY was implemented on two Universal Software Defined Peripherals (USRP) via MATLAB’s USRP toolbox. By applying the estimation of signal parameters via rotational invariance technique (ESPRIT) to a collection of received Wi-Fi symbols, the real-time Doppler radar was achieved, which demonstrated an average accuracy of sub-0.64 m/s in measuring a vehicle’s velocity.