Beam-Time Hopping modulation for automotive imaging radars interference mitigation

Abstract

We propose beam-time hopping modulation for automotive imaging radar that is immune to inter-car interference even in presence of analog frontend non-linear distortion. Other schemes such as direct sequence spread spectrum modulation or frequency hopping also mitigate inter-car interference due to orthogonality between radars signals. However non-linear distortion breaks this orthogonality. As a result, the requirements to radar analog frontend linearity are very strict which significantly increase cost and power consumption of automotive radar. In contrast, the beam-time hopping modulation maintains radars signals orthogonality to a large degree, even in the presence of non-linear distortion. It softens requirements on analog frontend linearity and may significantly reduce car radar cost and power consumption.