Viterbi Decoder to Resolve Angular Ambiguity in Digital Beamforming With Widely Spaced Radar Front Ends

This article introduces a precise radar-based direction-of-arrival measurement system using a Viterbi decoder. Based on the frequency-modulated continuous-wave principle, the presented method employs both the frequency difference and the round-trip phase difference of the radio wave signal impinging at two widely spaced receiving antennas, thereby accomplishing highly accurate and absolute measurements of the direction-of-arrival. In order to resolve angular ambiguity, which is inherently caused by the 2π ambiguity in phase measurement, the proposed Viterbi decoder determines the most likely sequence of direction-of-arrivals of the impinging radio wave signals. For proof of concept, experiments based on a 77 GHz radar unit equipped with one transmitting and two widely spaced receiving antennas were carried out. The measurement results show that angular ambiguity can be resolved by the presented Viterbi decoder since absolute, accurate, and repeatable direction-of-arrival estimates were obtained, even for receiver antenna spacings significantly larger than the signal wavelength.