Effect of Painted Bumper on Automotive MIMO RADAR Performance Study Using Bi-directional Loss and Antenna Array Ambiguity Function

In this paper, a performance study is conducted for a automotive MIMO RADAR antenna mounted behind a painted bumper. Initially, a 2Tx-4Rx MIMO RADAR antenna is designed and placed behind a simplified curved bumper. The individual Tx/Rx antenna is a seven-element series fed modified binomial array. Next, two layers of paint (primer coat and base coat) materials are applied on the bumper and performance of the antenna-painted bumper integrated system is studied using bi-directional loss and antenna array ambiguity function models. The proposed study provides a quantitative analysis into the MIMO RADAR performance matrics like bi-directiola loss, field-of-view and ambiguity in the direction-of-arrival estimation, caused by the real-time antenna-bumper interactions.