Improving Situational Awareness with Radar Information

This paper addresses the issue of improving situational awareness for large vehicles operating in all weather conditions. A new short-range 24GHz close proximity detection (CPD) microwave radar technology for providing situational awareness to the driver of large vehicles is presented. A series of experiments are performed in which the radar is used to detect a variety of static targets. The CPD radar is able to detect light vehicles at ranges from 2.2m to 17.6m within a horizontal arc of 160 degrees with superior angular resolution to many existing low-cost radars. From this data, key characteristics of the radar's performance and the radar cross-section of light vehicles at 24GHz are calculated. The data gathered allows the design of future tests and the development of a model of the radar that allows a better understanding of its performance characteristics and can be used for occupancy grid mapping.