Abstract
This paper introduces a novel antenna array synthesis for radar systems based on the concept of a virtual antenna array (VAA) and the method of moments/genetic algorithm (MoM/GA) synthesis method. The VAA concept is applied to both scanning and fixed radiation pattern arrays. The proposed VAA is introduced to simultaneously support the medium-range radar (MRR) and the long-range radar (LRR) with beam width ±7° for LRR and ±37° for MRR. The proposed VAA is distinguished by its minimum number of antenna elements, simple feeding network, high efficiency, and gain, but all of these are at the expense of a large aperture antenna size compared to the planar antenna array (PAA). The VAA has the ability to have the feeding network and the radiating elements on the same layer, as compared to the multilayer PAA. The newly proposed concept is analyzed and verified analytically and experimentally. Two orthogonal (16 elements) VAAs are designed to operate in the frequency range from 23.55 to 24.7 GHz and to support a flat-shoulder shape (FSS) radiation pattern for LRR/MRR. The antenna was fabricated and tested experimentally, and good agreements between the simulated and measured results were noticed. The proposed VAA is introduced to solve the problems of large size, low isolations, low efficiency, feeding network, low resolution, and small coverage range for the antenna arrays of automotive radars. The proposed antenna array is introduced for automotive radar applications at 24 GHz.
Highlights
Automotive systems are considered to be one of the world’s largest economic industries
RP: rectangular patch; VRP: varying rectangular patch; MC: microstrip comb-line; WOFN: without feeding network, which means that the total size of feeding network was not available in this paper; WF: includes the size of the feeding network; VAA: virtual antenna array; long-range radar (LRR): long range radar; medium-range radar (MRR): medium range radar; AMC: artificial magnetic conductor
The VAA concept is designed to have a simple, highly isolated and a highly efficient antenna array that competes with the planar antenna array (PAA) in most of its characteristics
Summary
Automotive systems are considered to be one of the world’s largest economic industries. Low cost, compact size, and ease of integration are the main concerns when solving the problems of automotive radar antenna design. In early radars for automotive applications that were first introduced in the 1970 s, huge and bulky antennas were utilized to meet necessary gains; these included as horn and parabolic antennas. Vasanelli et al [23] introduced a low radar cross-section antenna array based on the use of an artificial magnetic conductor (AMC) that was set around the series antenna to reduce the reflection in the direction of car fascia. Xu et al [2,3] developed the idea of the shaped beam antenna that has been used in other applications such as satellites and radars to introduce a single antenna array that meets the requirements of LRR and MRR in automotive radar applications. The main contribution in this research is the flexibility and the reconfigurability of the synthesized radiation pattern in a compact form (VAA), as well as its simple feeding network
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