FMCW Radar Estimation Algorithm with High Resolution and Low Complexity Based on Reduced Search Area

We propose a frequency-modulated continuous wave (FMCW) radar estimation algorithm with high resolution and low complexity. The fast Fourier transform (FFT)-based algorithms and multiple signal classification (MUSIC) algorithms are used as algorithms for estimating target parameters in the FMCW radar systems. FFT-based and MUSIC algorithms have tradeoff characteristics between resolution performance and complexity. While FFT-based algorithms have the advantage of very low complexity, they have the disadvantage of a low-resolution performance; that is, estimating multiple targets with similar parameters as a single target. On the other hand, subspace-based algorithms have the advantage of a high-resolution performance, but have a problem of very high complexity. In this paper, we propose an algorithm with reduced complexity, while achieving the high-resolution performance of the subspace-based algorithm by utilizing the advantages of the two algorithms; namely, the low-complexity advantage of FFT-based algorithms and the high-resolution performance of the MUSIC algorithms. The proposed algorithm first reduces the amount of data used as input to the subspace-based algorithm by using the estimation results obtained by FFT. Secondly, it significantly reduces the range of search regions considered for pseudo-spectrum calculations in the subspace-based algorithm. The simulation and experiment results show that the proposed algorithm achieves a similar performance compared with the conventional and low complexity MUSIC algorithms, despite its considerably lower complexity.