Forecasting Automotive Radar Interference: Is Current Spectrum Enough?

Vehicles are increasingly equipped with advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) sensors that help reduce road risks and accidents. Among them, radar sensors play a key role due to their affordable cost and high effectiveness in object detection and tracking. However, with increasing penetration, radar signals generated by different vehicles can create interference and this may have a detrimental impact on the functionality. This observation is leading to a discussion about the need for new bands and mitigation rules. Assuming frequency modulated continuous waveform (FMCW) and a realistic distribution of vehicles on a highway, in this work, we: (i) illustrate a model for the investigation of the interference impact; (ii) propose to use a chirp-by-chirp frequency hopping to mitigate the interference and compare it with the frame-by-frame frequency hopping; (iii) show results, highlighting that both mitigation mechanisms and large frequency bandwidths are necessary in the long run.