Digital beacon vehicle communications at 61 GHz for interactive dynamic traffic management

As a first step to driver support systems, digital beacon-vehicle communication systems are being developed. The author discusses work proving that millimeter waves in the region of 60 GHz are very well suited for beacon vehicle communications. The author examines different kinds of modulation schemes appropriate to low cost receiver equipment, to simultaneous operation of the communication equipment and car radar equipment and to bidirectional communications. The data rate depends on the application and may exceed 5 Mbit/s. The speed of the vehicles may be in the range up to 50 m/s, approximately. The RF-frontends are designed as millimeterwave monolithic integrated circuits (M³IC)