Radar Scheme With Raised Reflector for NLOS Vehicle Detection

The employment of passive reflectors enables the millimeter-wave automotive radars to detect an approaching vehicle in non-line-of-sight conditions. In this paper, the installation of such reflectors above the sidewalk at an intersection is proposed and studied, avoiding pedestrians' blockage and road dust effect at ground level. Through the analysis of the backscattering power, it is shown that the suggested scheme may detect an approaching vehicle in the blind zone at distances of 30 ... 50 m to the intersection point. Additionally, the analysis shows that efficient operation is highly dependent on the spatial orientation and size of the reflector. Even a few degrees rotation may change the detecting range by several meters. In turn, the larger area of the reflector may cover longer detecting distances, improving the radar scheme's overall performance. It is also shown that further performance enhancement can be achieved by employing a C-type radar, contributing an extra 5 dB to the backscattering power relative to an A-type radar. However, despite these improvements, the strongest scattering centre of the detectable vehicle is systematically identified to the bumper zone.