An Efficient Frequency and Phase Estimation Algorithm With CRB Performance for FMCW Radar Applications

In this paper, a chirp z-transform (CZT)-based algorithm for frequency-modulated continuous wave (FMCW) radar applications is presented. The proposed algorithm is optimized for real-time implementation in field-programmable gate arrays. To achieve a very high accuracy, the FMCW radar uses an additional phase evaluation. Therefore, a phase calculation based on the CZT algorithm is derived and compared with a correlation based algorithm. For a better classification of the algorithm, the respective Cramér-Rao bounds are calculated. The performance of the algorithm is shown by the evaluation of different radar measurements with a K-band radar. In the measurements, an accuracy of 5 μm with a mean standard deviation of 774 nm is achieved, which nearly matches the theoretically predicted mean standard deviation of 160 nm.