The secret weapon of automatic driving: millimeter wave radar analysis

Millimeter wave radar is a kind of sensor equipment that uses millimeter wave frequency band (generally between 30GHz and 300GHz) to detect and range. Compared with traditional microwave radar, millimeter wave radar has higher frequency and shorter wavelength, so it has obvious advantages in target detection, resolution and anti-interference ability.

Its basic working principle is this: by transmitting a beam, to detect the millimeter wave signal reflected from the object. Specifically, radar transmitters send out electromagnetic waves that bounce back when they hit objects, and receivers catch those echoes. After a comprehensive analysis of the intensity, time delay, and phase change of the echo signal, the millimeter wave radar can accurately know the distance, speed, and Angle of the target.

Benefits of millimeter wave radar

1. High resolution: millimeter wave radar can capture things in the surrounding environment at a higher resolution because of its short wavelength. This allows it to effectively recognize the details of vehicles, pedestrians, and traffic signs, providing the self-driving system with particularly accurate data.

2. Strong anti-interference ability: millimeter wave signal can penetrate rain, fog, snow and this bad weather, so millimeter wave radar can play a stable role in various weather conditions. In this way, the self-driving car can also run in complex weather environments, and driving safety is guaranteed.

3. Real-time data processing is fast: millimeter wave radar scans fast and can get real-time information about the surrounding environment. It can process data much faster than other sensors, like lidar or cameras, so that the autopilot system can react quickly and adapt to different driving scenarios.

4. Economical: Compared with Lidar, millimeter-wave radar has low production cost, so it has more advantages in carrying cost. This is also an important reason why many car manufacturers use millimeter-wave radar as a standard configuration.

Millimeter wave radar has a wide range of application scenarios in automatic driving, mainly in such key areas:

1. Obstacle detection: millimeter wave radar can accurately detect obstacles around the car, whether it is stationary buildings or moving pedestrians. This is particularly important for operations such as automatic parking and lane changes to effectively reduce the risk of collisions.

2. Adaptive cruise control: When running on the highway, millimeter wave radar can help the car achieve adaptive cruise control and maintain a safe distance from the car in front. This technology will not only make driving more comfortable, but also reduce the number of accidents caused by cars being too close together.

3. Collision warning system: millimeter wave radar can monitor the distance between the car and the obstacles in front of it in real time, and will issue an alarm if it is about to hit. This kind of early warning system can help drivers take action quickly before accidents happen.

4. Blind area monitoring: When changing lanes or reversing, millimeter wave radar can effectively recognize the blind area of the car, give a safety warning, and ensure the safety of the driver in complex road conditions.

5. Environmental awareness and map construction: In the environmental awareness of automatic driving, millimeter wave radar and other sensors (such as lidar, cameras) work together to build a real-time 3D map, which provides a lot of information support for decision-making.

Future development trend

As autonomous driving technology continues to advance, millimeter wave radar is constantly updated. The future millimeter wave radar will have more potential in the following aspects:

1. Integration: Future MMwave radars will be more integrated, and may be combined with other sensors (such as cameras and lidar) to become a more comprehensive perception system, which can improve the overall performance of autonomous driving.

2. Higher resolution: Scientists are working on new antennas and signal processing techniques to improve the resolution of millimeter wave radar, so that it can more accurately recognize small targets and complex environments.

3. Intelligent algorithm: With the development of artificial intelligence and machine learning technology, millimeter-wave radar will process data more intelligently, and can better recognize and predict the behavior of the target in dynamic scenarios, making the automatic driving system safer and more reliable.

4. Cost reduction: As the technology becomes more and more mature and the production scale becomes larger and larger, the production cost of millimeter-wave radar will slowly come down, so that it can be more widely used in various models and promote the development of automatic driving.

5. Improvement of regulations and standards: With the development of autonomous driving technology, traffic regulations and standards in various countries are constantly improving, providing a more reasonable legal basis for the application of millimeter wave radar.