Verification of an OFDM-based range and Doppler estimation algorithm with ray-tracing

In this paper, a simulation and validation method using ray-tracing for an OFDM joint radar and communication system is presented. The motivation is to verify the range and Doppler estimation algorithm and to observe the behaviour of the OFDM radar system in a real scenario where there are multipath and multiusers in its environment. The OFDM radar system has only been performance verified for a single user and since Doppler measurement is not easily repeatable, it is thus unreliable to use measurement verification for performance observation purposes of a real scenario. Hence a ray-tracing technique based on geometrical-optics is used where the wave propagation, material parameters and traffic are modeled according to realistic environments. The ray-tracing results are then exported into the OFDM radar system´s model on MATLAB and the result is observed from the radar image where the set distance and velocity are compared to those processed with the novel range and Doppler estimation algorithm.