Millimetre wave radar sensor for the highway global positioning of a vehicle

The trajectory control of a vehicle travelling along a motorway requires the acquisition of the lateral distance; such a datum is of paramount importance to improve the active safety for preventing accidents. To acquire this datum a reliable recognition of the road boundary has to be guaranteed. We demonstrate that by a mechanical modification of the actual cat-eyes, a highly reliable reference line for an on-board millimetre wave radar is realised. An electromagnetic design and prototype realisation of the so-modified cat eye is proposed. A complete electromagnetic characterisation of this prototype is reported. By this modification of the infrastructure in a passive fashion a smart navigation support system can be implemented; the real-time constraint requires a very high throughput elaboration system. To prove the system feasibility a three-processors prototype has been implemented