A 100 GHz millimeter wave radar system with 32 transmitters and 32 receivers for space applications

This paper describes the design of a 100 GHz millimeter wave radar system for space applications with operating distances below 20 m and a desired lateral resolution of 3 cm × 3 cm. Transmitting quasi-orthogonal spreading sequences enables a parallel operation of the 32 transmitters and 32 receivers. Thanks to a linear stage, the receiver positions can be further manipulated so that a higher number of receiver positions is synthesized. In addition, we present a computationally efficient simulation framework with digital focusing that accounts for the antenna patterns via suitable weighting coefficients. Accurate 3D reconstructions are presented for a siemens star that is modeled with a multitude of point targets.