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Obstacle Detection |
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The Navtech radar is ideal for use as an obstacle detection sensor. If a radar is placed at a suitable point on a vehicle, it can be used to detect obstacles such as people or rocks in the vehicle's path. This can provide a useful safety sensor for operation at night or in bad weather, as an aid to the driver in manually operated vehicles. For autonomously guided vehicles, radar may provide the only safety function. The Radar sensor acquires measurements through a 360-degree arc from 2m to 200m or more. Usually only objects directly in the planned path of the vehicle are of interest to the obstacle detection system. Typically the vehicle may move down narrow 'vehicle wide' corridors alongside objects, such as containers in a port terminal, that should be ignored by the obstacle detection system. The planned vehicle path is sent via CAN bus or other interface to the radar obstacle detection system. Radar messages of suitable signal strength and within close proximity of the vehicle (usually the safe breaking distance plus a safety factor) are checked to see if they occur within the planned path. Several radar measurements can be compared to improve detection performance. If sufficient measurements are found within the planned path of the vehicle then an obstacle message is sent via CAN bus to the vehicle controller. This information also contains details of the position of the obstacle and the detected signal power.
If an obstacle is not detected within a given time period, a health message is sent this serves as a heartbeat message. If this message is not received, the controller can assume there is a problem with the obstacle detection safety function and take appropriate action with the vehicle.
Further information available by following the link: Obstacle Detection with Navtech 77GHz FMCW Radar (Download .pdf) |
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