COTS technologies for radar sensors at millimeter-wave bands

Radar sensors at millimeter wavelengths offer significant advantages over systems operating at lower frequencies, such as transmitting large bandwidths while keeping compactness and cost-effectiveness. The implementation of these systems usually requires to resort to integration of heterogeneous technologies, which is a key issue addressed in this paper. A 100-GHz high-resolution FMCW radar, composed of both commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) and designed-specific microstrip circuits, is presented. Different technologies are involved in this development: digital signal generation, microstrip designed circuits, waveguide components, etc. A simple experimental setup has been used to assess the system performance. An example of application of ISAR imaging is also presented.