System architecture for installed-performance testing of automotive radars over-the-air

Automotive radar at 77 GHz is a key technology for the implementation of autonomous driving. The sensors and the systems associated with it are traditionally tested using real test drives that span several millions of kilometres. However, these test drives do not provide a reliable, reproducible nor controlled environment. Moreover, the costs and time effort associated with them is tremendous. Hence, novel test systems are required where experiments can be performed in an accurate, reliable, reproducible, and controllable way, by emulating a representative and realistic virtual test environment. The objective of this paper is to present an architecture and approach to augment real field tests. We use a hardware-in-the-loop approach that emulates a virtual radar environment corresponding to the scenarios defined for test and validation, and simulates the response behaviour of the interconnected automotive subsystems. The whole system will be installed within the Virtual Road Simulation and Test Area at the Technische Universität Ilmenau. The solution comprises a holistic evaluation system where the radar-under-test is installed in the car, stimulated in a virtual electromagnetic environment, and its performance is evaluated in real time. The approach is to divide the system design problem into blocks of independent subsystems and their components. We analyse the critical parameters of each one of them, in order to arrive at a coherent system concept through interconnection of these sub-systems. We also discuss some of the initial aspects of our implementation.