Application of a fast equivalent currents based algorithm for scattering center visualization of vehicles

For the development of new radar sensor concepts in the automotive market comprehensive and reliable system simulation capabilities are highly desired. Since the radar channel includes both, desired and undesired contributions from the sensors environment, deterministic channel and wave propagation models are a crucial part of the whole simulation chain. Unfortunately, for some applications even asymptotic ray-based models exceed the available computational resources and further simplifications are required. Instead of brute-force ray tracing with a detailed geometrical description of the scene, one approach is based on a precomputed scattering center representation of complex objects. In this case, inverse synthetic aperture radar (ISAR) is a promising technique to estimate the required number and positions of the scattering centers. The imaging process should be fast enough to enable an investigation of a large number of bistatic configurations. In the 2D case, for range and cross-range resolution, classical Fourier processing requires twodimensional scattering data in frequency and aspect domain, which can be quite costly. Therefore, an idea presented is adapted to the existing scattering simulation code and applied to the scattering center visualization of vehicles.