Angular Resolved RCS and Doppler Analysis of Human Body Parts in Motion

The backscattering models of complex traffic targets play a critical role in the current evolvement of over-the-air (OTA) validation test methods and, consequently, the validation and verification of advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS). Furthermore, stimulating the operational behavior of the automotive radar sensor in an OTA vehicle-in-the-loop (ViL) environment requires radar cross section (RCS) and Doppler signatures related to the movement of vulnerable road users (VRUs), especially pedestrians in traffic scenarios. These RCS and Doppler signatures of human motion can be retrieved by evaluating the range-Doppler behavior of the motions from the human extremities. High-resolution RCS measurements in the radial and angular domains can be applied to micro-Doppler models of human motions and significantly improve them. Therefore, this work presents a measurement technique to estimate the radar reflectivity of different scattering points of human body regions in different moving scenarios. The necessary signal processing steps are discussed in detail for assigning the corresponding RCS values and Doppler signature to the time-varying scattering points from the different extremities of a human body. The measurement results can be used to develop more realistic models of a person in motion in a real traffic scenario which is worthwhile in radar channel wave propagation, target recognition, and classification.