ACCURATE RCS IMAGING OF CAR IN-CABIN OBJECTS AT SUB-THZ FREQUENCIES

Journal article, 2022

Novel efforts to characterize the car-cabin propagation environment at 243 GHz have been made. A Radar Cross-Section (RCS) imaging system is presented for examining the sub-THz scattering properties of individual objects/features found in a typical car cabin. The system is based on Inverse Synthetic Aperture Radar (ISAR) techniques, and aims to accurately estimate the spatial distribution of reflection points off objects from various aspect angles. The resulting data aims to increase the knowledge of the relatively complex propagation environment inside a car cabin, and aid development of in-cabin sensing sub-THz radar systems. Presented are measurements made of a steering wheel and a car seat. Individual reflection points could be resolved by a few centimeters using a 10 GHz bandwidth. The front of the steering wheel, which consisted mainly of smooth plastic, produced rather strong specular reflections whilst the fabric car seat produced less intense but diffuse reflections off its center area.