Imaging radar for navigation and surveillance on an autonomous unmanned ground vehicle capable of detecting obstacles obscured by vegetation

The Norwegian Defence Research Establishment (FFI), has developed a multi purpose radar demonstrator for Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) on the Off-road Light Autonomous Vehicle (OLAV) platform. The radar is designed to aid OLAV in navigation, detection and classification. Operating in off-road environments is a considerable challenge for autonomous vehicles, especially in the presence of vegetation. While existing perception sensors such as cameras and LIght Detection And Ranging (LiDAR) work well in clear weather and areas without vegetation, they are impaired by rain, fog, smoke and vegetation. This paper presents the development of the Multiple Usage Radar - S-band (MURA-S), developed to aid the autonomous platforms in challenging conditions. Initial considerations and frequency selection for the radar is presented in addition to a detailed explanation of the antenna configuration and the utilization of time-domain multiplexed Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) techniques to increase the cross-range resolution of the radar. Preliminary experimental results for detecting obstacles obscured by vegetation are presented and compared with obstacle maps created by the LiDAR, showing that the radar enhances the capabilities of the perception system.