Autonomous driving is a megatrend in the automotive industry having the advantage of improved safety and better traffic flow. Additionaly, new mobility services, reduced emissions and an optimized use of electric cars are possible. The success of this innovation needs a robust, cheap and high available system for sensing the environment in real time. Especially the protection of pedestrians and cyclists requires a significantly improved sensor system in comparison to current solutions. For example, a view of 360° around the vehicle is necessary under all weather conditions. Therefore, radar sensors are essential.

The supposed solution uses one sensor network consisting of different sensors instead of different sensor systems for every task. This leads to the new multistatic configuration with different MIMO sensors placed around the car. Consequently, each sensor needs a view angle larger than 180° and offers the possibility to combine information from different aspect angles (compared to binocular vision). All sensors work simultaneously and the transmit signals are received from all antennas, only depending on the field of view. Therefore, a centralized signal processing gives the possibility of an improved target classification in terms of localization, dimensions of the objects and rate of rotation.

The Institute of Radio Frequency Engineering (IHE) develops the antenna design together with the partners and cares about all radio frequency problems. The aim is the use of conformal antennas to reach the necessary view angle.