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Advancing Millimeter-Wave Vehicular Radar Test Targets for Automatic Emergency Braking (AEB) Sensor Evaluation

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2017, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, Electrical and Computer Engineering.

Automotive radar is an emerging field of research and development. Technological advancements in this field will improve safety for vehicles, pedestrians, and bicyclists, and enable the development of autonomous vehicles. Many automotive companies have already begun to develop autonomous emergency braking (AEB) to avoid or mitigate pedestrian and bicyclist crashes. However, the effectiveness of such systems needs to be accurately tested using standardized test procedures, which have yet to be agreed upon by the international automobile industry and associated government agencies. European testing standards, such as the Euro New Car Assessment Program (NCAP) AEB and AEB-VRU (vulnerable road user), are currently among the first of these standards, and are used for vehicle and pedestrian targets; with plans to include bicyclist targets in the near future. Such standards allow consumers and government regulatory agencies to assess the effectiveness of a vehicle equipped with an AEB system. Obviously, it is neither practical nor safe to use real targets such as pedestrians, bicyclists, or vehicles to conduct such tests. Therefore, a key element of standardized AEB test protocols is standardized surrogate targets that can produce similar sensor responses as real-life cars, pedestrians, and bicycles. In addition, such standard targets need to withstand repeated impacts from the vehicle under test (VUT), prevent damage to the VUT, and be easily reassembled after impacts.

This dissertation establishes the steps for characterization of various targets through measurements, the design of a surrogate bicyclist target, and demonstrates successful hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) emulation of targets for AEB scenarios. To design a surrogate target means that the original target must be accurately characterized. This can be done by first studying the far-field radar cross section (RCS) of the target. Since most AEB test scenarios range from 0 m to 100 m, the RCS measurement in the near-field is necessary. Backscattering in the near-field results in range dependent RCS. Hence, a useful characterization of the target is the study of RCS as a function of range. A main contribution of this work is to produce a high-fidelity surrogate bicycle target that is suitable for evaluating the effectiveness of 77 GHz automobile radars in detecting bicyclists for both RCS and micro-Doppler characteristics. Once a target is accurately characterized, a surrogate target can be developed for AEB testing or modeled for HIL testing.

The ability to perform HIL testing on automotive radar sensors allows for quick evaluation and highly repeatable test scenarios. The radar HIL test system is presented in this thesis as the Radar Echo Emulator (REE) coupled with the Dynamic Scene Emulator (DSE) for camera sensor evaluation, which is capable of performing through-the-loop emulation of four targets at a fixed radar scanning angle. The REE is capable of emulating the Doppler response produced by vehicles as well as the micro-Doppler signatures of pedestrian targets and bicycles, using the empirical data collected during RCS and micro-Doppler characterization. Further, the REE system is capable of producing emulated scene scenarios generated from the AEB and AEB-VRU test protocols.

Chi-Chih Chen (Advisor)
Joel Johnson (Committee Member)
Graeme Smith (Committee Member)
Ahmet Selamet (Committee Member)
344 p.

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Belgiovane, Jr., D. J. (2017). Advancing Millimeter-Wave Vehicular Radar Test Targets for Automatic Emergency Braking (AEB) Sensor Evaluation [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1511867574425366

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Belgiovane, Jr., Domenic. Advancing Millimeter-Wave Vehicular Radar Test Targets for Automatic Emergency Braking (AEB) Sensor Evaluation. 2017. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1511867574425366.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Belgiovane, Jr., Domenic. "Advancing Millimeter-Wave Vehicular Radar Test Targets for Automatic Emergency Braking (AEB) Sensor Evaluation." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2017. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1511867574425366

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)