A modular 24 GHz radar sensor for digital beamforming on transmit and receive

A compact modular 24 GHz imaging radar sensor for digital beamforming is presented. Besides digital beamforming on receive, the advantage of multiple switched transmitters is used for increasing the angular resolution, which requires less hardware effort. The presented FMCW radar sensor provides up to eight switchable transmitters and eight receiver channels for parallel receiving, allowing digital beamforming on transmit and receive. A new switching technique via switchable amplifiers is proposed. Within the scope of this paper an overview of the whole radar sensor´s architecture, design and realization is given. The performance of the sensor is successfully demonstrated and evaluated by measurements.