Proceedings of the 11th European Radar Conference

Target Simulator Concept for Chirp Modulated

77 GHz Automotive Radar Sensors
Steffen Lutz, Christian Erhart, Thomas Walter

Robert Weigel

Laboratory of Microtechnology,
University of Applied Sciences Ulm,
89081 Ulm, Germany
Email: steffen.lutz@ieee.org; erhart@hs-ulm.de; walter.th@hs-ulm.de

Institute for Electronics Engineering,

University of Erlangen-Nuremberg,
91058 Erlangen, Germany
Email: robert.weigel@fau.de

a linear antenna array and a dielectric cylindrical lens. Another

key requirement is the separation of distance and velocity
which can be accomplished by a chirp sequence modulation
which is the focus of this contribution.

AbstractAutomotive radar sensors are key components for

driver assistant systems. In order to handle complex traffic
scenarios an advanced separability is required with respect to
object angle, distance and velocity. In this contribution a highly
integrated automotive radar sensor enabling chirp sequence
modulation will be presented and discussed. Furthermore, the
development of a target simulator which is essential for the characterization of such radar sensors will be introduced including
measurements demonstrating the performance of our system.

B. Chirp Sequence Modulation

A classical modulation waveform for automotive radar
sensors is FMCW (Frequency Modulated Continuous Wave)
[4]. Using a PLL linear frequency ramps are generated as
illustrated in Figure 1. The transmitted signal (marked blue)

Index Termsautomotive radar; 77 GHz; chirp sequence modulation; separability; target simulator.

I. I NTRODUCTION
Radar based driver assistant systems are key components
in modern driver assistance systems. These systems enable
comfort functions such as ACC (Adaptive Cruise Control)
or safety functions like advanced emergency breaking systems. Furthermore, autonomous driving is considered as an
important trend for the individual mobility of the future [1].
This, however, requires driver assistance systems which can
handle complex traffic scenarios. With respect to radar sensors
an advanced performance regarding angular separability and
separability in distance and velocity is a major requirement
for complex and urban traffic scenarios. In this paper a
highly integrated radar sensor (based on SiGe-MMICs) is
presented which enables angular measurements in azimuth
and elevation and which allows chirp sequence modulation
for distance / velocity separation. Furthermore, a concept and
a prototype for a target simulator will be introduced which
is essential for the characterization of our automotive radar
sensor. Future improvements of our target simulator enabling
the evaluation of radar sensors for complex traffic scenarios
and measurements will be included.

Doppler shift

fc
range shift

time

Fig. 1. Set of typical FMCW Waveforms with up and down chirps and
different slopes. The TX and RX Signal is marked red and blue respectively

is centered at the frequency fc . The backscattered RX signal

(marked red) is shifted in time and in frequency. After a direct
down conversion to the baseband at 0 Hz the resulting IF
frequency can be obtained from:
d
v
fIF = 2m + 2fc
(1)
c
c
With the center frequency fc , the slope of the frequency
ramp m, the distance d, the speed of light c and the relative
velocity v of the target. From this relation it is quite obvious
that a separation of distance and velocity is not possible from a
single ramp. Thus, multiple ramps with different slopes have to
be used followed by a matching of detected objects. However,
depending on the situation and modulation scheme this can
lead to ambiguities in combination with a significant computational effort for object matching. An alternative modulation
scheme which avoids these ambiguities is the chirp sequence
modulation. In figure 2 this modulation scheme is illustrated.

II. R EQUIREMENTS FOR AUTOMOTIVE R ADAR SENSORS

A. Functional Requirements
The application of automotive radar sensors especially in
complex urban environments imposes several functional requirements on the sensor concept and the signal processing.
These requirements contain angular measurements in azimuth
and elevation. The sensor concept discussed in this contribution exhibits the ability of measurements in azimuth and
elevation as reported in [2] and [3] based on the combination of

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8-10 Oct 2014, Rome, Italy

antenna array

A chirp sequence consists of a large number of fast frequency

ramps with the chirp duration TChirp and denoting N as
the number of chirps. The signal processing of such a chirp
sequence is accomplished in the following way: First a FFT is
performed for each single chirp yielding the distance range of
a detected object. Due to the high slope of the frequency ramp
the frequency shift term due to the Doppler effect is by far
smaller than the range shift within one chirp. However, from
chirp to chirp the phase changes due to the Doppler effect.
Therefore, in the following step a second FFT is performed
for each distance range across the single chirps [5]. Thus,
the 2D-FFT shows the distance range on one coordinate and
the velocity of the object on the other one. Results of such
measurements using our target simulator will be presented in
section IV.

4x

4x

4x

TRX

D
tune

PLL

VCO

ref

dielectric lens
Fig. 3.

Sensor concept.

3 GHz. For the processing of the IF signals, four parallel variable gain amplifiers with programmable gain and anti aliasing
filters were implemented. A/D conversion is accomplished by
an external 16 Bit PCIe A/D converter with 4x30MSPS. A
photograph of the sensor boards is shown in Figure 4.

TRRI

antenna array

fc

reference osc.
4 ch. TRX

PLL

1
time
Tchirp

77 GHz VCO
IF and uC board

Fig. 2.

Chirp sequence modulation scheme

Fig. 4.

However, such a modulation scheme imposes several challenges and problems. Consider a chirp length of 50 s, a
FMCW modulation bandwidth of 1 GHz and a maximum
detection range of 200 m. These parameters result in a beat
frequency of about 27 MHz for the range detection. According
to the Shannon-Nyquist theorem a sampling rate of more than
54 MSPS is required in order to avoid undersampling. On the
other hand a chirp length of 50 s corresponds to a sampling
frequency of 20 kHz for the velocity detection. Therefore, at
a center frequency of 77 GHz velocities up to about only
10 m/s (corresponding to 36 km/h) can be detected. For such
a parameter set undersampling has to be considered. In [6]
a concept using compressed sensing based on the l-1 magic
approach has been published.

Photograph of stacked circuit boards

Signal processing as well as the data acquisition from the

A/D converters has been implemented in MATLAB.
IV. TARGET SIMULATOR
A key component for the characterization and evaluation
of our radar sensor is the availability of a target simulator
allowing the simulation of targets at a certain distance and with
a certain relative velocity. In this contribution the development
of such a target simulator, corresponding measurements with
a chirp sequence modulation scheme and an outlook on
further developments of an advanced target simulator will be
described and discussed.
A. Concept of the target simulator

III. S ENSOR C ONCEPT

When developing a target simulator for automotive radar

sensors the simulation of a target at a certain distance can be
easily accomplished by positioning a corner reflector at the
desired distance (if enough space in the laboratory is available). However, the simulation of a certain relative velocity is
more complex. Recently, a mechanically moving target using a
dielectric waveguide was proposed [9]. Our approach is based
on another compact concept without any moving parts. This
concept is illustrated in Figure 5.
The transmitted waveform is received by a horn antenna
from the radar sensor. The signal is shifted down in frequency

Our sensor concept is based on a multi static four channel

77 GHz radar concept. Therefore, each channel can transmit
and receive as illustrated in Figure 3. As mentioned above, the
antenna configuration was developed to determine the angle of
an object in azimuth as well as in elevation as described in
[2]. The RF-frontend consists of eWLB housed [7] MMICs
from Infineon Technologies [8] and a companion chip from
Infineon for waveform generation.
This integrated waveform generator allows chirp lengths
down to 10 s in combination with a modulation bandwidth of

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from the comercial frequency generator. After upshifting in

frequency, the signal is amplified and transmitted via a second
horn antenna back to the radar sensor containing now the
information of distance and relative velocity. Figure 6a and
6b depict photographs of the target simulator (control unit and
simulator frontend with the two horn antennas and the 77 GHz
components).

f(D, target 1)

RX horn

atttarget 1

atttarget 2

-6 dB

DC

f(D, target 2)

LO

0.5 m
-6 dB

1m

2m

4m

switchable delay line

8m

16 m

32 m

64 m

opt. delay line I

-6 dB

TX horn

(a) Simulator in 19 enclosure

UC

Fig. 5.

Fig. 6.

opt. delay line II

(b) mm-wave frontend

Photograph of target simulator

This concept enables the simulation of two targets with

different velocities and ranges. Therefore the simulator setup
allows the test of range and velocity resolution, as well as
complex moving scenarios for testing tracking methods. The
simulator is useable with an maximal chirp bandwith of 4 GHz.

Concept of the advanced target simulator

and amplified by a harmonic single sideband mixer into a

2 GHz baseband. The two necessary LO signals are provided
from a commercial frequency generator in combination of a
power divider. This downshifted signal in the 2 GHz range
is splitted into two paths. With two vector modulators a
frequencyshift - representing the Doppler shift can be added
to the baseband signals. The offset frequencies are generated
using two DDS IQ synthesizers. With two programmable
attenuators the relativ RCS of both targets can be set. For
the simulation of the time of flight of the radar signal a
combination of optical and switchable coaxial delaylines is
used. The optical delayline converts the RF signal into an
optical signal by a laser source which can be modulated in this
frequency range. This optical signal is transmitted into a mono
mode optical fiber with a certain optical length providing the
necessary delay for our target simulator followed by an electro
optical conversion (and amplification) back into an electrical
signal in the 2 GHz baseband with a fixed delay of 50 m
imposed by the length of the optical fiber. The delay of the
second path can be selected by a binary switchable delayline
in the range of 0.5 m to 128 m. This delayline uses optical
delays as well as classical coaxial delaylines. After adding the
delays and the Doppler shifts both signal paths are combined
using a broadband combiner. The combiner output signal is
upshifted in frequency by a second harmonic mixer into the
77 GHz range. The necessary LO signal is again provided

B. Measurements
In combination with the described target simulator our radar
sensor involving a chirp sequence modulation was characterized and evaluated. Using this target simulator, two targets
at different distances (due to the availability of delaylines
and the necessary splitting and combining of the signals in
the 2 GHz range), however, with two different Doppler shift
freqeuncies could be simulated. Figure 7 gives an example of a
radar sensor measurement using a chirp sequence modulation
scheme with a chirp length of 100 s and a modulation
bandwidth of 2 GHz. As a result of the signal processing (2D
FFT and appropriate windowing) the two targets at different
distances, with different relative velocities, can be clearly
detected.
The target simulator also enables also the investigation of
the maximum resolution of the radar sensor with respect to
range and velocity domain. Figure 8 shows an estimated target
simulator scenario with two targets with the same range of
50 m and an absolute Doppler frequency difference of 100 Hz.
The waveform settings are equal to the settings in the previous
estimation.
The shown results indicate, that the simulator is feasible to
generate Doppler shifts with an high accuracy and precision.
In the shown example the velocity estimation is limited by the

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-5

minimize the detrimental effect described above. In order to

illustrate the importance of this consideration an IF frequency
corresponding to the maximum frequency according to the
Shannon-Nyquist theorem shall be considered. If the start of
the sampling jitters by about one sampling period, the phase of
the converted IF signal will jitter by 180 making the velocity
estimation almost impossible.

velocity in m/s

-4
-3
-2

V. D ISCUSSION AND C ONCLUSION

In this contribution a chirp modulated automotive radar
sensor is presented and discussed. The highly integrated architecture based on SiGe-MMICs from Infineon allows programmable chirp sequences down to a chirp length of 10 s
and a chirp bandwidth of 3 GHz. It is pointed out that a
synchronization of the chirp start and the A/D-conversion is essential to enable an accurate velocity estimation. Furthermore,
a target simulator allowing the simulation of moving targets at
a certain distance is introduced including the characterization
of our chirp modulated radar sensor based on the 2D FFT.
Finally, a concept for an advanced target simulator allowing the simulation of complex traffic scenarios is presented.
Highly integrated 77 GHz radar sensors using chirp sequence
modulation enable the handling of complex traffic scenarios
with respect to the separability degree in distance and velocity.
The development of a target simulator allowing the simulation
of complex object scenarios is also essential for testing the
performance of such sensors.

-1
0
20

40

60
80
target range in m

100

120

Fig. 7. Result of v/d estimation based on a 2-D FFT transform for two
targets with different velocities and ranges. White frame contains an enlarged
view of the target.

-5

velocity in m/s

-4
-3
-2
-1
0
30

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
35

40

45

50

55

60

This work was funded by the German Ministry of Education

and Research within the project RADAMES. SiGe MMICs,
dielectric lenses and helpful discussions were provided by
Infineon Technologies and the Robert Bosch GmbH.

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target range in m
Fig. 8. Result of velocity resolution simulation. Two targets at same range.
Doppler frequencies differ about100 Hz. White frame contains an enlarged
view of the targets.

R EFERENCES
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Based Radar Sensors, International Microwave Symposium Digest, 2011
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[6] Lutz, S.;Ellenrieder, D.;Walter, T., Weigel, R.: On Fast Chirp Modulations
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resolution of the 2D FFT - not by the properties of the target

simulator.
One key aspect regarding the waveform generation and the
data acquisition will be discussed in the following subsection.
It is essential to synchronize the start of the frequency ramp
and start of the sampling of the IF signal accurately. Due to the
fact that the the phase of the IF signal (of the primary FFT)
forms the input of the velocity estimation of the secondary
FFT, it is essential to start the frequency ramp and the sampling
of the IF signal accurately at the same time. This phase of the
signal is constant in each chirp for a stationary object. If the
sampling start and the ramp start are triggered asynchronously,
a jitter resulting in a phase noise of the velocity estimation will
occur. This phase jitter results in a phase noise of the velocity
estimation. In case of our data acquisition the IF signal was
sampled continuously. The synchronization bit provided by
the waveform generator was used to cut the IF bit stream and
rearrange the IF data for the subsequent 2D FFT. However,
it seems to be more appropriate to use a common clock for
the waveform generator and for A/D-sampling in order to

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