An Approach to Over-the-air Synchronization of Commercial Chirp-Sequence Automotive Radar Sensors

Abstract

An approach to wireless synchronization be- tween two commercial 77GHz automotive FMCW radar sensors is shown. In particular, our main concern is the align- ment of a passive listening sensor to a second active trans- mitting sensor in frequency, time, and waveform modulation parameters, just by observing the signals transmitted from the active sensor. We show that using a combination of inter- and intra-chirp-sequence synchronization, the active sensor’s signal can be successfully de-ramped for fast-chirp-sequence waveforms with 275MHz of bandwidth. In addition, we discuss timing requirements and challenges, and characterize the remaining synchronization errors by an analysis of the IF signal data matrix of the de-ramped waveform.