Interference Characterization and Power Optimization for Automotive Radar With Directional Antenna

Wide deployment of radar sensors on automotive vehicles can potentially lead to a severe interference problem. Such interference has been characterized without considering directional antenna patterns, which could lead to results significantly larger than the actual ones. In this paper, we study the mean power of effective echo signals and interference, by considering both front- and side- mounted radars equipped with directional antennas. We employ the stochastic geometry method to characterize the randomness of vehicles and hence radars in both two-lane and multi-lane scenarios, and derive closed-form expressions for the mean interference by approximating the radiation pattern by Gaussian waveforms. Simulation results are shown to match the analytical results very well, and insights are obtained for the impact of radar parameters on interference. Based on the interference analysis, we aim to minimize the total transmission power of each vehicle with constraints on the required signal to interference and noise ratio. An optimal solution is obtained based on linear programming techniques and corroborated by simulation results.