High-Density Clutter Recognition and Suppression for Automotive Radar Systems

In this paper, an enhanced high-density clutter recognition and suppression method for automotive frequency-modulated continuous wave (FMCW) radar systems are presented. In a high-density clutter environment, such as guardrails, tunnels, and soundproof walls, the target detection performance is degraded because many undesired beat frequency components are detected due to a large number of reflectors in road structures. Thus, we propose to recognize and suppress the high-density clutter to enhance the target detection performance. On the basis of the distinctive beat frequency distribution in the high-density clutter environment, we propose a recognition parameter. After clutter recognition, we suppress the clutter using the correlation between up-chirp and down-chirp received signals. By using the experimental results obtained from various road environments, we applied our proposed recognition and suppression method and verified its performance. As a result, the high-density clutter was clearly recognized and effectively suppressed by the proposed method. In addition, more accurate and reliable target detection can be achieved when the clutter-suppressed signal is used, which can ensure the safety of drivers using automotive FMCW radars.