Identifiable Radar Reflectors For Automotive Pedestrian Safety

Sammanfattning: Radar plays a major role in safety-critical applications mainly in the automotive industry due to its weather and lighting independence. The progress made in radar hardware technology has made it possible to detect objects more efficiently. Autonomous vehicles need to address a lot of problems encountered in their pathways which need proper detection and identification of obstacles for navigation purposes. Detection and identification of obstacles during navigation help in defining the trajectories for a vehicle so that collision can be avoided. A 77GHz radar system is used in many automotive industrial vehicles for automotive safety. At any given time, there is a possibility of multiple objects being in the vicinity of a vehicle that is not highly reflective which is based on its materialistic properties, such as prams or bicycles as compared to other road vehicles. In the work described in this thesis, we aim at designing, detecting, and identifying simple radar reflectors using copper sheets, which can be placed on such low reflective objects which helps in increasing pedestrian safety aspects. The software aspect of the radar module being used is achieved by using a demo application provided by the radar module manufacturer. This acts as the base structure for the python script which is used for detection and identification of the radar reflectors.