MICROWAVE METAMATERIALS-BASED ULTRAFAST DETECTING SCHEME FOR AUTOMOTIVE RADARS

摘要

An ultrafast microwave metamaterial-based target detecting system that can detect azimuth locations of objects is proposed in this letter. This method relies on space-to-frequency mapping characteristics of microwave metamaterial leaky wave antennas. By simply mapping locations to frequencies, the proposed object detecting method requires minimum postprocessing of signals that are commonly performed in conventional imaging or radar systems. Therefore, the data acquiring speed is dominated by the frequency sweeping speed of signal source, which is usually in the order of a few milliseconds, thereby being able to achieve real time location detection. This speed can be further boosted up to micronanoseconds range using a pulse generator as the signal source. Moreover, the proposed scheme dramatically reduces the system complexity compared to phased arrays or mechanical beam scanning arrays, and therefore, is very promising to be further used in real time automotive radar systems. (c) 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 57:1343-1345, 2015