Automotive Squint-Forward-Looking SAR: High Resolution and Early Warning

Abstract

Forward-looking automotive radars can sense long-distant targets to enable early warning, but the lateral resolution is limited. Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) techniques can achieve very high azimuth resolution but cannot resolve targets in the forward direction. As a trade-off, squint-forward-looking SAR (SFL-SAR) can perform 2D imaging on a distant area squint to the moving direction, providing both high resolution and early warning. In this paper, we analyzed and derived the constraints of automotive SFL-SAR to satisfy both the required resolution and braking distance. Simulations and imaging results verified the analysis.