Enabling Safe Autonomous Vehicles by Advanced mm-Wave Radar Simulations

In the development of automotive vehicular technology, safety is an essential concern. Intelligent Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) require the automotive radar to detect real objects accurately and neglect false ones. Employing simulation tools to realize real-world scenarios will help engineers design and test these modern systems. In this paper, we present a full-scale electromagnetic (EM) simulation of a 30,422 λ large busy intersection at 77 GHz by utilizing a hybrid hierarchical simulation approach, which employs a combination of ANSYS HFSS Finite Element Method (FEM) solver and the shooting and bouncing rays (SBR+) solver. For proof of concept, we demonstrate the accuracy of the proposed solver by comparing simulated versus analytical results of a canonical object. This study shows a promising potential for simulations to strengthen the development of safe autonomous vehicular technology.