Radar Phase Compensation Circuit for Antenna Array Accuracy
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Solution Overview
Problem
Radar receiving systems face challenges in maintaining accuracy for direction of arrival determination due to phase errors between multiple receiver circuits, especially when using a large number of antennas that exceed the processing capacity of a single receiver chip, leading to deteriorated angular resolution.
Innovation Solution
A radar receiving system is implemented with multiple receiving circuits and a phase compensation circuit that determines and compensates for phase offsets between Fourier transformation output values from different circuits, allowing for improved angular precision by aligning the phases of the output values across the circuits.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Quantity of substance
If multiple receiver circuits are used to handle a large number of antennas, then the system can process more antenna signals, but phase errors between receiver circuits deteriorate the accuracy of direction of arrival determination
Solution Approach 1:
The antenna array is divided into multiple sub-arrays, each handled by a separate receiver circuit. This segmentation allows the system to process signals from a large number of antennas while managing complexity through distributed processing across multiple receiver circuits.
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs feedback by determining phase offsets between receiver circuits and applying phase compensation to correct errors. The phase compensation circuit uses the determined phase offsets to adjust the reception signals, creating a closed-loop system that maintains measurement precision despite using multiple receiver circuits.
2Measurement precision
If a single receiver circuit is used, then phase errors are minimized, but the number of antennas that can be processed is limited
Solution Approach 1:
The phase compensation circuit acts as an intermediary between multiple receiver circuits, mediating the phase errors that arise from their use. By introducing this intermediate compensation stage, the system can utilize multiple receiver circuits to handle more antennas while maintaining phase accuracy through active correction.
3Quantity of substance
If more receiver circuits are deployed to increase antenna capacity, then system complexity increases, but this enables processing of larger antenna arrays
Solution Approach 1:
The phase compensation circuit serves multiple functions: it determines phase offsets between receiver circuits, calculates appropriate compensation values, and applies phase correction to signals. This multi-functional approach reduces overall system complexity by consolidating multiple operations into a single unified compensation mechanism.
Data Source
AI summary
According to one embodiment, a radar receiving system is provided comprising a first receiving circuit, a second receiving circuit, a spectral analyzer, an object detector, and a phase compensation circuit. The spectral analyzer is configured to generate, from a first plurality of reception signals, a first set of Fourier transformation output values and, from a second plurality of reception signals, a second set of Fourier transformation output values. The object detector is configured to determine a range/Doppler bin of a plurality of range/Doppler bins as an estimate of a range and speed of an object. The phase compensation circuit is configured to determine a phase offset between the Fourier transformation output values of the first set and second set of Fourier transformation output values and to compensate the phases of at least a part of the second set of Fourier transformation output values by the determined phase offset.