Automotive radar interference problem between multiple radar sensors is investigated. Phase-coded frequency modulated continuous wave (PC-FMCW) radar structure with low sampling and processing power demands is introduced to blindly mitigate mutual interference. The interference resiliency of the proposed structure is evaluated and compared with the conventional frequency modulated continuous wave (FMCW) automotive radar. It is demonstrated that the proposed approach is more robust to both coherent and non-coherent interference types, allowing resilience to both external interference of radars but also the self-interference in the simultaneous multiple input multiple output (MIMO) transmission.

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The phase-coded linear-frequency-modulated continuous-wave (PC-FMCW) waveform with a low sampling processing strategy is studied for coherent multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) radar. The PC-FMCW MIMO structure, which jointly uses both fast-time and slow-time coding, is proposed to reduce sidelobe levels while preserving high range resolution, unambiguous velocity, good Doppler tolerance, and low sampling needs. The sensing performance and practical aspects of the introduced PC-FMCW MIMO structure are evaluated theoretically and verified experimentally. The numerical simulations and experiments demonstrate that the proposed MIMO keeps the advantages of the linear-frequency-modulated continuous-wave (LFMCW) waveform, including computational efficiency and low sampling demands, while having the ability to provide low sidelobe levels with simultaneous transmission.@en

Phase-coded frequency modulated continuous wave (PC-FMCW) radars for joint sensing and communication are considered. The sensing and communication performance of the two signal processing methods, phase lag compensated group delay filter and filter bank receivers, are compared. It is demonstrated that the phase lag compensated group delay receiver provides better sensing performance and requires less computational complexity than the filter bank receiver. The application of the former receiver is, however, limited by the bit error rate degradation with the communication signal bandwidth.@en

Mutual interference in the frequency modulated continuous wave (FMCW) radar is studied, and the influence of the FMCW interference on the beat frequency is analyzed. An analytical expression for the victim radar received signal spectrum is derived. Different interference scenarios are investigated by means of interference impact on the range-Doppler profile. It is shown that coherent interference concentrates within multiple range cells while non-coherent interference spreads the interference power over the whole range-Doppler plane.@en

Two receiver structures of phase modulated FMCW signals with low ADC sampling requirement are investigated, namely the matched filter of the dechirped signal and the group delay filter approach. The sensing performance of the investigated receiver strategies are analyzed in application to BPSK modulated chirp. Numerical simulations demonstrate that both techniques provide comparable performance for low to moderate bandwidth of the modulation signal. Matched filter outperforms the group delay receiver for the modulation waveform with large bandwidth, hence with the price of larger computational complexity.@en

As the complexity of nanosatellite missions have increased over time, the data generated on-board nanosatellites have increased multiple folds. As a result, there is a need to downlink large amounts of data. Multiple nanosatellite missions have started using spectral efficient modulation schemes recommended in DVB.S2 and DVB.S2X to make the best use of the available spectrum. One of the main challenges in adopting higher order modulation schemes is to power-efficiently upconvert and amplify the baseband signals. All the lost efficiency in converting the DC power to the RF output is dissipated as heat and the relatively small thermal mass of nanosatellites poses thermal management challenges. As a first step to addressing the challenge of improving the power efficiency of the communication module, optimization techniques to improve the Peak to Average Power Ratio (PAPR) of the modulation schemes (16/32-APSK) are discussed in this paper. The PAPR of 16-APSK reduces by ~2 dB by incorporating filtering techniques discussed in this paper. Further, a well-known efficiency and linearity enhancement technique; Out-phasing/LINC (Linear Amplification using Non-linear Components) is discussed. As a variant of the out-phasing architecture, a novel approach is proposed using two circularly polarized antenna to transmit the constant envelope signals in opposite polarizations and signal combining is performed at the receiver. Simulations results are used to demonstrate how higher efficiencies can be achieved using the proposed architecture.@en

Smoothed phase-coded frequency modulated continuous waveform (SPC-FMCW), which is aimed to improve the coexistence of multiple radars operating within the same frequency bandwidth, is studied, and the receiving strategy with a low analog-to-digital converter sampling requirement is investigated. The Gaussian filter is applied to obtain smooth waveform phase transitions, and then, quadratic phase lag compensation is performed before waveform transmission to enhance decoding. The proposed waveform is examined in different domains, and its waveform properties are analyzed theoretically and demonstrated experimentally. Both simulation and experimental results show that the introduced waveform with the investigated processing steps helps combine all advantages of the FMCW waveform, including hardware simplicity and small operational bandwidth of the receiver, with the advantages of phase coding.

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The sensing properties of the binary phase codes are investigated with their application to phase-coded (linearly) frequency modulated continuous waveform (PC-FMCW). It is shown that the ambiguity function of FMCW signal modulated with a binary phase code corresponds to sheared ambiguity function of the code itself. The range profiles of PC-FMCW with different code families are analysed and compared in terms of integrated sidelobe level (ISL).

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The phase coded FMCW and its properties for joint sensing and communication are studied. Two different receiver structures for the sensing properties of this waveform are compared theoretically and experimentally. It is shown both by simulations and experiments that the phased coded FMCW combines communication capabilities of PMCW and sensing capabilities of FMCW while using a realizable hardware complexity for an automotive radar.@en

Mutual interference between different radar waveforms used in automotive radar applications is studied. The existing interference analysis is extended to a generalised radar-to-radar interference equation that covers most of the common interference scenarios for automotive radar systems. The outcome of the generalised equation is demonstrated for a number of typical scenarios where radars with different continuously transmitting waveforms are involved. The proposed equation can be used to characterise the received interference and its features by analysing the instantaneous beat frequency of the victim radar. Moreover, an interference analysis of phase-coded frequency-modulated continuous waveforms is performed and demonstrated experimentally by using real-time automotive radars for the first time in the literature. The experimental results corroborate the interference analysis of different waveforms and validate the proposed generalised interference equation under various conditions.

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