DEEP-RADAR | Learning efficient millimeter wave radar imaging for autonomous vehicles

Summary
The emerging autonomous vehicle ecosystem is expected to grow with an almost 40% CAGR in the next decade hitting €485 billion by 2026 and exceeding €6 trillion in 2050. There is wide industry consensus that improved long-range depth sensing modalities are imperative for the viability of self-driving cars. State-of-the-art optical technologies are still prohibitively expensive, have insufficient temporal and spatial resolution, do not provide an accurate velocity reading, and are restricted to a shorter range in adverse weather conditions. Millimeter wave multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) radars are an attractive alternative relying on a phased array of transmitting antennas and digital receivers, containing no moving parts, and able to penetrate adverse weather conditions. The weakness of this technology is the costly requirement for a large number of receiver channels to achieve sufficient spatial resolution. We will apply our novel methodology recently developed for medical imaging to overcome this challenge.

We have demonstrated that learning the entire imaging pipeline in medical ultrasonography, including the shape of the transmitted pulses and the configuration of the receivers allows reducing the number of transmits by a factor of 3, while maintaining image quality comparable to traditional high-frame rate imaging protocols. Despite the different underlying physics, ultrasound and radar imaging share many conceptual similarities and have a similar mathematical description. Here, we intend to develop a proof-of-concept MIMO radar system demonstrating that by using the learned transmit patterns and image reconstruction pipeline, it is possible to halve the number of receive channels without compromising the image resolution and signal-to-noise ratio. Maintaining high resolution images using a smaller number of receiver channels will significantly reduce the cost of this technology and increase the commercial viability of automotive MIMO radars.
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More information & hyperlinks
Web resources: https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/862040
Start date: 01-10-2019
End date: 31-03-2021
Total budget - Public funding: 150 000,00 Euro - 150 000,00 Euro
Cordis data

Original description

The emerging autonomous vehicle ecosystem is expected to grow with an almost 40% CAGR in the next decade hitting €485 billion by 2026 and exceeding €6 trillion in 2050. There is wide industry consensus that improved long-range depth sensing modalities are imperative for the viability of self-driving cars. State-of-the-art optical technologies are still prohibitively expensive, have insufficient temporal and spatial resolution, do not provide an accurate velocity reading, and are restricted to a shorter range in adverse weather conditions. Millimeter wave multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) radars are an attractive alternative relying on a phased array of transmitting antennas and digital receivers, containing no moving parts, and able to penetrate adverse weather conditions. The weakness of this technology is the costly requirement for a large number of receiver channels to achieve sufficient spatial resolution. We will apply our novel methodology recently developed for medical imaging to overcome this challenge.

We have demonstrated that learning the entire imaging pipeline in medical ultrasonography, including the shape of the transmitted pulses and the configuration of the receivers allows reducing the number of transmits by a factor of 3, while maintaining image quality comparable to traditional high-frame rate imaging protocols. Despite the different underlying physics, ultrasound and radar imaging share many conceptual similarities and have a similar mathematical description. Here, we intend to develop a proof-of-concept MIMO radar system demonstrating that by using the learned transmit patterns and image reconstruction pipeline, it is possible to halve the number of receive channels without compromising the image resolution and signal-to-noise ratio. Maintaining high resolution images using a smaller number of receiver channels will significantly reduce the cost of this technology and increase the commercial viability of automotive MIMO radars.

Status

CLOSED

Call topic

ERC-2019-POC

Update Date

27-04-2024
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Horizon 2020
H2020-EU.1. EXCELLENT SCIENCE
H2020-EU.1.1. EXCELLENT SCIENCE - European Research Council (ERC)
ERC-2019
ERC-2019-PoC