Multifunction Aperture for Vehicular Radar Integration

The current vision of active safety systems in future vehicles includes the use of both narrow field of view 77 GHz long range radar and wide field of view 24 GHz short range radar. The complexity of integrating both long range and short- range radar in the front of a vehicle is driving the need for new antenna approaches. This work describes the use of a spherical dielectric lens antenna with multiple 24 GHz and 77 GHz feeds located around the lens that creates multi-beam outputs with needed radiation patterns for each radar application from a single aperture. A prototype of this multifunction aperture was fabricated and measured.