Motion Estimation and Compensation in Automotive MIMO SAR

With the advent of self-driving vehicles, autonomous driving systems will have to rely on a vast number of heterogeneous sensors to perform dynamic perception of the surrounding environment. Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) systems increase the resolution of conventional mass-market radars by exploiting the vehicle’s ego-motion, requiring very accurate knowledge of the trajectory, usually not compatible with automotive-grade navigation systems. In this setting, radar data are typically used to refine the navigation-based trajectory estimation with so-called autofocus algorithms. Although widely used in remote sensing applications, where the timeliness of the imaging is not an issue, autofocus in automotive scenarios calls for simple yet effective processing options to enable real-time environment imaging. This paper aims at providing a comprehensive theoretical and experimental analysis of the autofocus requirements in typical automotive scenarios. We analytically derive the effects of navigation-induced trajectory estimation errors on SAR imaging, in terms of defocusing and wrong targets’ localization. Then, we propose a motion estimation and compensation workflow tailored to automotive applications, leveraging a set of stationary Ground Control Points (GCPs) in the low-resolution radar images (before SAR focusing). We theoretically discuss the impact of the GCPs position and focusing height on SAR imaging, highlighting common pitfalls and possible countermeasures. Finally, we show the effectiveness of the proposed technique employing experimental data gathered during open road campaign by a 77 GHz multiple-input multiple-output radar mounted in a forward-looking configuration.