Research

Until a few years ago, road safety in road traffic relied solely on humans. At the advent of connected and automated driving, as technology takes over control of vehicles and traffic, testing plays a central role to ensure safety and reliability of such systems.

In particular, radio technologies play a crucial role, both for environmental perception and for communications. These technologies are subject to time-consuming verification and validation (VV) procedures already. If automation levels beyond level 2+ shall be reached in the long term, testing of wireless technologies must address a larger number of traffic scenarios and radio network configurations in a short time. This is the challenge that current VV chains cannot meet.

As part of the 4-CAD project, we are investigating new virtual possibilities of verification and validation based on the following four pillars:

Multilevel: The projects cover different testing levels from software-in-the-loop (SiL) over different key constituents of virtual test environments towards dedicated test ranges.

Wireless: We focus on V2X communications and automotive radar systems and the channels they use.

Performance: We focus on quantitative measures to enable objective evaluation of performance.

Testing: we identify suitable methods for verifying and validating driving functions in order to reveal their capabilities in diverse traffic situations.

In this context, our research group investigates how VVV of automotive radars can be performed in a way that increases the reliability of environment perception. To this end, we identify metrics and quality factors for radar-based automated driving and implement multi-stage VV chains ranging from SiL to vehicle-in-the-loop (ViL) to test tracks.

4-CAD is composed of two individual research grants funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG). Our department participates in the grant " Scenario-based tool chain for virtual verification and validation of automotive radar " (project number 503852364).

Joint communication and sensing has recently gained increasing interest on the road towards future mobile radio. This is especially true for Joint Communication and Radar Sensing (JCRS). JCRS adds valuable capabilities to mobile radio networks, which opens completely new applications beyond communication and wideband network access for localization of passive objects. The advantage comes with the reuse of mobile radio and network resources, which eventually safes resources and reduces costs. At the same time, the ubiquitous availability of mobile radio networks immediately provides a pervasive radar-sensing network with unprecedented functionality. Multipoint JCRS constitutes a widely distributed MIMO radar network, in which the inherent capabilities of the mobile communication network are used for both radar sensing and data transfer and fusion. The distributed nature supports gaining a “global” radar view within an area of interest. This implies cooperation of the multiple transmitters (radar illuminators) and/or receivers (radar sensors).

The prerequisite of Coordinated Multi-Point operation for JCRS (JCRS-CoMP) is multipoint radio synchronization. We investigate different accuracy levels of synchronization, which will range from coarse time-frame coordination for media access over fine delay synchronization to allow for precise time-of-flight target localization up to carrier phase synchronization for coherent target illumination. Another essential ingredient for JCRS-COMP is illuminator signal predistortion, which stands for fine synchronization control and radio adaption for maximizing radar performance and clutter resilience in highly dynamic scenarios. Coordinated Multi-Point transmission was already proposed and standardized for LTE-A as an efficient approach to achieve higher spectral efficiency and improved coverage at cell edges. However, radar sensing performance was not yet considered. Our goal is therefore to introduce the radar view into CoMP schemes for future mobile radio systems. This way we will break with the precedent that mobile radio and radar networks have developed over decades independently and are able to fuse both views.

JCRS CoMP is an individual research grant funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) (project number 503852364).

In ExamING, we are expanding our radar laboratory, which we offer as part of our lecture "Fundamentals and Systems of Radar Technology". The ExamING educational project, which is currently entering its second phase, aims to establish a skills-oriented teaching and examination system that will contain both purely digital offerings and analog, practical elements and can therefore be used on site, hybrid and virtually. The aspects of equality, diversity and accessibility will be taken into account holistically. More digital offerings will enable international students who are unable to obtain a visa in the short term, as well as students who care for relatives (children, parents, etc.), to participate in courses or examinations.

As part of our sub-project, students will learn digital signal processing methods on an FMCW radar with the help of JupyterHub. A digital radar twin will be made available to them so that they can participate remotely and with low access barriers. At a final event, the students then test their implementations on real radars and with real radar targets.

The project is funded by the German Foundation for Innovation in University Teaching (Stiftung Innovation in der Hochschullehre).