Simulation of a Frequency-Modulated Continuous-Wave (FMCW) Radar Using Fast Fourier Transforms (FFT)

Frequency-modulated continuous-wave (FMCW) radar systems send known frequency signals to moving targets and receive the signal back to detectors. FMCW systems can be used to measure exact heights of landing aircrafts. In addition, they are used in early warning radar systems and in proximity sensors. The advantage of using these radar signals is that the object target velocity and range can be quickly calculated using fast Fourier transforms (FFT). Taking the row-wise FFT of the signal matrix gives range information in form of range bins. Then taking column-wise FFT enables displaying the velocity for each range bin. The three-dimensional graph of the resulting matrix gives a signal power plot with respect to both the range bin numbers and their velocity.