Distributed Radar Network with Polymer Microwave Fiber (PMF) Based Synchronization

Distributed radar networks provide numerous advantages, such as increased angular resolution and improved signal-to-noise ratio. However, the requirement of having the chirped local oscillator (f
TX
) signal distributed to minimize the phase noise of the bi-static and multi-static responses of such networks increases their complexity and expenses. Our work shows that it is possible to synthesize the frequency-modulated continuous-wave signal in a central module and distribute it at f
TX
/2 via polymer microwave fiber (PMF) to radar nodes operating in the 76–81 GHz band. Thus, we are able to fulfill the requirement of being a coherent distributed radar network as well as bring the cost down by using PMF for the f
TX
/2 distribution. Furthermore, we compare the performances of the same PMF based radar network with a coaxial cable based radar network for f
TX
/2 distribution, and the performances are comparable.