Advanced radome design for automotive applications

Abstract

One of the main goals that the automotive industry is committed to achieve in the following years is the development of the autonomous driving, a car that can drive by itself which is intended to reduce the number of deaths in the roads. Over the last years, the introduction of the ADAS (Advanced Driver-Assistance System) in new cars have progressively increased. Every day more new cars have implemented different sensors such as radar sensors, lidar sensors, ultrasonic sensors or cameras which allow the automobiles to take control of some driving aspects such as the emergency brake, the lane assist or the ACC (Active Cruise Control) to assist the driver in order to achieve different levels of autonomous driving. For these different functionalities that a semi-autonomous car can implement, the radar sensor is of interest. Present systems operate in the 77 GHz band with a forecast to increase the frequency of operation above the 90 GHz. The safety benefits of this technology are undubious, but the different sensors need to be hidden from the outside for aerodynamics and aesthetic reasons. For car manufacturers, it is a challenge to integrate the radar without degrading its performance while keeping the vehicle aesthetics. The solution is to design radomes that allow to conceal the radar, keep the car styling and do not degrade the radar performance. All this with the additional requirement that the solution must be valid for mass production. Because of that, this thesis covers three main aspects such as the development of an electromagnetic laboratory and a virtual electromagnetic laboratory to characterize the main KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) with real prototypes or with 3D model prototypesl respectively in order to validate the performance of the radome-emblem design based on the radar manufacturer requirements. The last aspect that is intended to be addressed in this dissertation is how the design of the radome-emblems can be improved in order to minimize the impact on the radar sensor performance.