A Software-Synchronization Based, Flexible, Low-Cost FMCW Radar

Abstract

With the development of the Internet of Things, FMCW (Frequency Modulated Continuous Wave) radars are widely used in medical treatment, human behavior detection, Internet of Vehicles and UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) detection. However, the existing systems have some shortcomings, such as high requirements for synchronization signal, lack of flexibility and high design cost. In this paper, to address these problems, a software-synchronization based, flexible, low-cost FMCW radar is proposed. Firstly, the radar uses periodic intermittent slope signal as modulation signal, and analyze echo signal to detect a target with a software synchronization algorithm. Most interestingly, hardware synchronization signal is not needed in the proposed radar as in conventional designs, which greatly facilitate implementation. Secondly, the radar system has a high flexibility due to the use of a software waveform generator and a software data processor. The system is built without expensive integrated chips and equipment, which greatly reduces the design cost. Finally, two groups of experiments under different environments are designed. Through the analysis of the results, it can be seen that the radar system designed in this paper achieves a good accuracy while greatly reduces the design cost and complexity.