Design of Series-fed Patch Array with Modified

2021 IEEE International Symposium on Antennas and Propagation and USNC-URSI Radio Science Meeting (APS/URSI) | 978-1-7281-4670-6/21/$31.00 ©2021 IEEE | DOI: 10.1109/APS/URSI47566.2021.9704636

Binomial Coefficients for MIMO Radar Application

Jogesh Chandra Dash, Debdeep Sarkar Yahia Antar
Department of Electrical Communication Engineering, Royal Military College of Canada
Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore Kingston, ON, Canada
[email protected], [email protected], [email protected]

Abstract— In this paper, we propose a collocated antenna line feed structure. Also, the design in [5] is not easily
configuration having three transmitter and five receiver arrays for integrable with ICs for automotive Radar application due to its
automotive MIMO Radar application. The individual antenna center-fed configuration. The antenna structure in [6] also
arrays consist of a seven-element series fed array with the feed suffers from a similar problem of high cross-polar radiation
provided at the edge. We introduce a modified-binomial
coefficient-based excitation scheme to achieve improved side-lobe
levels.
level (SLL) in series-fed patch arrays with edge feeding. The In this paper, we propose a series fed microstrip patch array
proposed MIMO configuration exhibits low SLL less than 16 dB with modified binomial coefficients, that provides better
and a wide field-of-view (FoV) of about 80o in the azimuth plane, angular resolution in MIMO Radar scenarios, while
along with satisfactory angular resolution (5.82 o) and low cross- maintaining low side low level (SLL) and improved cross-polar
polar level (30 dB), rendering it extremely suitable for automotive levels.
medium-range radar (MRR) application.
II. DESIGN OF PROPOSED SERIES FED ANTENNA ARRAY
Keywords— MIMO Radar, Virtual Array, Series-fed Array
The proposed series-fed patch array targeted for 77 GHz
automotive Radar applications, is designed on 0.25 mm thick
I. INTRODUCTION RTD 5880LZ substrate, having dielectric constant r = 2, and
In the present era, Radar systems are finding significant dielectric loss tangent tan = 0.0021 (see Fig. 1). The feeding
applications in industrial and civilian domains, besides the is provided at the edge of the antenna so that it can be easily
traditional application in defence sectors. The integration of integrated into ICs for automotive Radar applications (see Fig.
multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) technology with 1). Simulated frequency variation of S11 in Fig. 2 confirm that
Radars has led to significant performance enhancement in terms the proposed series-fed array operates at 77 GHz with
of target-detection, localization, and tracking. MIMO Radars impedance matching bandwidth around 1 GHz.
can transmit multiple orthogonal waveforms through multiple Note that, the binomial tapering scheme for SLL reduction as
transmitters, which marks their distinction from conventional proposed in [5] was targeted for center-fed configurations, but
phased array Radars [1]. This waveform diversity of MIMO it degrades the SLL and impedance matching for the edge-fed
Radar enables the formation of the “virtual array”, which bears array under consideration here. Therefore, we introduce a
larger effective dimension than the physical array [2], “correction factor” for the normalized binomial coefficients in
enhancing the angular resolution even with the small physical edge-fed configurations as follows (1):
size. This unique feature of higher angular resolution achieved 𝐶0𝑁−1 𝐶1𝑁−1
𝑁−1
𝐶(𝑁−1) ⁄2
𝑁−1
𝐶𝑁−1
via virtual array mechanism has attracted the automotive 𝐵𝑘 = 𝑞. 𝑁−1 𝑁−1 … 𝑁−1 … 𝑞. 𝑁−1 (1)
𝐶(𝑁−1) ⁄2 𝐶(𝑁−1) ⁄2 𝐶(𝑁−1) ⁄2 𝐶(𝑁−1) ⁄2
industries to realize advanced driver assistance systems Here q is the correction factor multiplied to the end element, C
(ADAS) for current and future autonomous vehicles using represents the mathematical symbol for Combination, and N
MIMO Radars. represents the number of antenna elements in a series fed
According to the maximum attainable range and antenna structure. For N = 7 along with the other optimized dimensions
field-of-view, the automotive Radar configurations are (see Fig. 1) it is observed that q=2 is necessary to achieve the
classified in three categories: long-range Radar (LRR), SLL less than 16 dB and an azimuth FoV of close to 80 0 (-370
medium-range Radar (MRR), and short-range Radar (SRR) [3]. to +370), which is suitable for automotive MRR application [7].
Series-fed patch antenna arrays are popular for application in
these automotive MIMO Radars, since they produce a fan-beam
radiation pattern with wide azimuth beamwidth [4], and low
sidelobe level (SLL). Moreover, series-fed arrays can be easily
integrated into on-chip Radars in a single printed circuit board
(PCB) layout. A binomial series-fed microstrip antenna with
Fig. 1 Series fed modified-binomial tapered array (dimensions in mm: l1= 1.35,
extremely low sidelobe level is presented in [5], but the design w1= 1.6, l2= 1.35, w2= 1.185, l3= 1.36, w3= 0.553, l4= 1.39, w4= 0.185, lg= 1.085,
suffered from increased cross-polar level due to the meander wg= 0.03)

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 The 2D azimuth and elevation field pattern showing FoV of
about 800 and SLL less than 16 dB is shown in Fig. 3(a) and (b)
respectively. Moreover, the proposed antenna exhibits cross
polar level less than 30 dB in both azimuth and elevation plane
due to symmetry, which is much better performance compared
to [5] and [6]. The peak gain of the series-fed patch array at 77
GHz is 11.5 dBi.
III. REALIZATION OF MIMO RADAR CONFIGURATION
The proposed series-fed array is used to form a MIMO Radar
with collocated transmitter and receiver elements. Fig. 4
illustrates the schematic of the MIMO Radar system with three
transmitter and five receiver arrays. The simulated 3D radiation Fig. 5 Simulated 3D radiation pattern of a single series-fed array in the 3x5
pattern showing gain of transmitter antenna 1 (Tx1) at 77 GHz MIMO radar antenna configuration at 77 GHz
is shown in Fig. 5. The antenna arrangement for the proposed
MIMO radar antenna can be expressed as The proposed antenna arrangement provides the virtual array
Mt = [0, 2, 4], Mr = [6, 6.5, 7, 7.5, 8] aperture (dv) of 12 [8]. According to the Rayleigh criterion and
where Mt and Mr are the position vectors of transmitter and following the formulation of [7], an angular resolution ∆𝜑 =
receiver arrays, and  is the free space wavelength at 77 GHz 1.22 𝜆⁄𝑑𝑣 for the proposed arrangement comes out to be 5.82o.
operating frequency. IV. CONCLUSION
A 3x5 MIMO Radar system with collocated series fed patch
arrays is developed in this work. The series-fed patch array is
designed considering a modified binomial tapering approach,
which improves the impedance matching, SLL, cross-polar
level as well as, provides a wide FoV. Furthermore, the angular
resolution performance in MIMO Radar is significantly
improved via the enhanced virtual array effective area. Future
works will focus on extension of the modified Binomial
coefficient concept for generic N-element series-fed arrays, and
Fig. 2 Simulated frequency variation of S11 magnitude for the series-fed array also deploy advanced tools (eg. Genetic algorithm) to optimize
in Fig.1. the inter-element spacing in the MIMO Radar for obtaining
even better angular resolution values.
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Fig. 4 Schematic diagram of 3-transmitter and 5-receiver arrangement MIMO 0171
radar antenna (dimensions in mm: L= 37.3, W= 22.65, dt1= dt2= 8, dr1= dr2= dr3=
dr4= 2).

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