Bernhard Lucas

A Small, Light Radar Sensor and Control Unit for Adaptive Cruise Control

This paper presents an overview of the technical concepts technologies, and the development process of a sensor and control unit that integrates a Frequency Modulated Continuous Wave (FMCW)-radar sensor and an adaptive cruise control (ACC) controller in one housing.

Safety application specific requirements on the data processing of environmental sensors

At first sight, safety applications based on environmental sensors have the same data requirements as comfort applications. A closer look makes clear that there are important differences especially concerning the data processing. This paper describes the requirements of safety and comfort orientated driver assistance systems. It is shown that the data-output provided by an environmental sensor, which is for example a radar sensor, does not exactly fit to the required data-input of these applications. This gap is closed by setting up a hypothesis on the environment by use of model assumptions. The information content of data and the reliability of the information change in the curse of data processing. Here is a major difference between safety and comfort applications. A safety critical application needs very reliable data, which can only be ensured when the included model assumptions are well known and the information content of data is clearly defined. Furthermore, it is necessary to describe the reliability of all provided information.

Development of a mid range automotive radar sensor for future driver assistance systems

Radar sensors are key components of modern driver assistance systems. The application of such systems in urban environments for safety applications is the primary goal of the project “Radar on Chip for Cars” (RoCC). Major outcomes of this project will be presented and discussed in this contribution. These outcomes include the specification of radar sensors for future driver assistance systems, radar concepts, and integration technologies for silicon-germanium (SiGe) MMICs, as well as the development and evaluation of a system demonstrator. A radar architecture utilizing planar antennas and highly integrated components will be proposed and discussed with respect to system specifications. The developed system demonstrator will be evaluated in terms of key parameters such as field of view, distance, and angular separability. Finally, as an outlook a new mid range radar (MRR) will be introduced incorporating several concepts and technologies developed in this project.

Adaptive cruise control (ACC)

ACC (Adaptive cruise control) simplifies the task of driving a car because it relieves the driver of the mentally demanding task of keeping a check on the car’s speed, thus allowing driving behind slower vehicles to be relaxed and safe.