Methods of target recognition for UWB radar

With the growth of embedded components (GPS, radar, cameras...), road vehicle becomes more and more intelligent and reassuring. The concept of the intelligent vehicle is to make it able to analyze, individually and independently, the external data before transmitting them to the driver. In recent years, ideas for studies and research programs on this concept have proliferated in different environments. The cars now have tools to control speed, manage traffic and ensure the avoidance collision task. A radar, that allows to detect obstacles in the road environment and to alert the driver, is one of the very powerful devices, even essential to ensure the safety of road users. This device has the advantage of being effective anytime (fog, rain...). The arrival of Ultra Wide Band (UWB) technology for radar application allows the development of compact and relatively cheap sensors. Dedicated to military applications, radar devices using UWB are now a good tool of detecting obstacles for many applications in life everyday. These sensors could be used to measure distances and positions with greater resolution than existing radar devices or to obtain images of objects buried underground or placed behind surfaces. This paper is focused on the study of UWB radar signatures to identify the type of obstacles.