Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Trends in Electronics and Informatics (ICOEI 2018)

IEEE Conference Record: # 42666; IEEE Xplore ISBN:978-1-5386-3570-4

Design and Evaluation of C-Band FMCW Radar

System
Tushar Yuvaraj Gite Pranav G Pradeep A. A. Bazil Raj
Department of Electronics Engineering Department of Electronics Engineering Department of Electronics Engineering
Defence Institute of Advanced Defence Institute of Advanced Defence Institute of Advanced
Technology, Technology, Technology
Pune, India. Pune, India. Pune, India.
[email protected] [email protected] [email protected]

Abstract—The design and evaluation of C-Band Frequency

Modulated Continuous Wave (FMCW) radar system is presented II. WORKING PRINCIPLE OF FMCW RADAR
in this paper. Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) board is FMCW radar is able to measure the range of a stationary
used to tune the Analog Front End (AFE) of radar system with target by transmitting a modulated frequency. A modulated
Digital to Analog Converter (DAC). The IF signal from AFE is frequency signal is used as a time reference mark to measure
then amplified by high precision voltage amplifier circuit and
the delay in the return echo from the target. The time reference
monitored with the help of Analog to Digital Converter (ADC)
can be measured when the frequency of transmitted signal is in
and FPGA to detect and measure the velocity of the target. The
use of the FPGA will allow real-time signal processing. The main a linear-ramping form (sometime referred to as chirp signal) as
purpose of this work is to bring a simplified perspective to design shown in Fig. 1.
FMCW radar and to carry out a series of laboratory
experiments. FMCW radar is capable of providing a better
detection of target in motion. The radar design approach and
signal processing algorithms are briefed and experimental results
are analysed in this paper.

Keywords—Frequency Modulated Continuous wave (FMCW);

FPGA Spartan 3E board; ADC; DAC; Velocity Measurement

I. INTRODUCTION
Frequency Modulated Continuous Wave (FMCW) radars
have gained interest due to several reasons. The first and most
important reason is generation and dechirping waveform which Fig. 1.Principle of FMCW radar dechirping process.
is highly compatible with solid state electronics and hence,
they are significantly easier to build simpler than pulsed radars. In Fig.1, ∆t is measured from the difference between
Since fewer components, than in other kind of radars, are transmitted and received frequency signal in the range from the
involved in FMCW radar that offers higher levels of reliability target, is the beat frequency which is equal to the difference
[1, 2]. The FMCW radar have a low probability of intercept, between received frequency and transmitting frequency, C ≈ 3
× 108 m/s is speed of light, then the ∆t can be obtained as
i.e. they are difficult to detect by other devices. FMCW radars
provide a much better resolution than the pulsed for short ∆ =
×
(1)
ranges. Velocity can be measured by using Doppler radar where
constant frequency is transmitted by radar. Transmitted signal
FMCW radars have been more commonly used in limited is reflected from targets and it is received by radar. Now these
applications where short ranges are involved, such as airplane signals from stationary objects are not changed by any
altimeters, range detectors, automotive radars and naval frequency, while moving targets change received frequency
industries [3]. They have also been used for meteorological due to Doppler effect. When transmitted signal is mixed with
purposes. In fact, one of its first uses was related to the received one, we can extract Doppler frequency. Velocity
ionospheric research. (ʋ) can be calculated from measured Doppler frequency ( ) as
×
The commonly available FMCW Radars are very = (2)
×
expensive. That’s why here we proposed one design which is
very cost effective. We used Analog Front End (AFE) with Where is the frequency of Voltage Controlled Oscillator
FPGA Spartan 3E board, Analog to Digital Converter (ADC) (VCO).
and Digital to analog Converter (DAC). These components are
easily available too.

978-1-5386-3570-4/18/$31.00 ©2018 IEEE 1274

 Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Trends in Electronics and Informatics (ICOEI 2018)
IEEE Conference Record: # 42666; IEEE Xplore ISBN:978-1-5386-3570-4

Fig. 2.Block Diagram of proposed FMCW radar

III. PROPOSED DESIGN OF FMCW RADAR the Low Noise Amplifier (LNA) and fed into RF port of Mixer.
Within Mixer, the delayed version of the scattered waveform is
Block diagram of the proposed design is shown in Fig. 2. multiplied by the transmitted waveform. There is a constant dc
All the RF components used in this design are procured from offset between what was transmitted and what is received
minicircuits. Since the radar is designed for C-band, available which is known as IF out. This constant offset is directly
components according to our design at the minicircuits are proportional to velocity-of-target. When the transmit waveform
purchased and used to construct the experimental setup. We is multiplied by delayed receive waveform within mixer the
brief few main sections of the experimental test-bed below: product difference is the constant DC offset known as the beat
A. FPGA Spartan 3E signal. If multiple targets are present, then multiple beat signals
will be superimposed on each other in the video output signal
Utilization of FPGA development boards are rapidly
that uniquely represent the target speed.
increasing due to its several advantages [4]. Here FPGA
Spartan 3E board is used for two purposes as 4 slide switches D. Video Amplifier
of FPGA are used to vary DC voltage for tuning VCO and to Here the IF out from the Rx chain is around ±3mV, hence
perform Universal Asynchronous Receiver and Transmitter
we used a high precision video amplifier circuit to amplify up
(UART) serial communication to PC. The real time signal
to the level of ±0.1V.
processing is achieved in MATLAB environment.
B. DAC E. ADC
A 8 bit digital data of a decoder of 4 slide switches is The amplified analog IF signal is now fed into the
connected to the DAC that converts it into an equivalent DC ADC0804 to obtained binary 8 bit data out which is then fed to
voltage signal. This DC voltage is used for the purpose of the FPGA Spartan 3E for enabling UART serial
tuning the VCO at the transmitter chain [5-7]. Accordingly communication with the PC [9-11].
different DC voltage levels are obtained for 16 possible input IV. PRACTICAL IMPLIMENTATION AND EXPERIMENTAL ANALYSIS
combinations.
Here the developed experimental set up of our FMCW
C. Analog Front End radar using FPGA is shown in Fig.3.
It consists of VCO, power amplifier, Splitter, transmitting
(Tx)/receiving (Rx) antennas, Low Noise Amplifier (LNA) and
Mixer [8].
The frequency of VCO output is proportion to its input
control voltage i.e. Vtune. The frequency variation is achieved in
our case by changing oscillator’s Vtune DC voltage over time.
The output of VCO is a sinusoidal waveform at a constant
frequency with respective to the value of Vtune. This waveform
is amplified by amplifier and fed into power splitter, where the
half of it is radiated by Tx antenna and the rest is fed into the
Local Oscillator (LO) port of down conversion mixer and is
radiated out of Tx antenna. This waveform propagates through
space, scatters off the target, and propagates back toward the
radar where a portion of it is collected by Rx antenna [7-9].
The waveform collected by Rx antenna is a delayed version of
original waveform. The signal from Rx antenna is amplified by Fig. 3.Experimental set up of proposed FMCW radar

978-1-5386-3570-4/18/$31.00 ©2018 IEEE 1275

 Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Trends in Electronics and Informatics (ICOEI 2018)
IEEE Conference Record: # 42666; IEEE Xplore ISBN:978-1-5386-3570-4

We have implemented an UART serial communication

module in Spartan 3E FPGA with baud rate of 115200, which
will transmit 8 bit data serially to PC [12]. In MATLAB we use CONCLUSION
functions to read data from serial port of the PC and then plot This paper explains the implementation of low cost
the waveform in real-time. Taking Fourier transform of this FMCW radar system, analysis of intermediate signals which
convey information of speed of the target. yield important information about target velocity. In this
Amplified IF out of Rx chain is shown in Fig.4. system, usage of Spartan 3E FPGA serves as important
hardware for controlling Vtune for VCO and interfacing ADC
for converting analog IF data from the receiver antenna to
digital 8 bit data. A serial communication module was also
implemented in FPGA to send 8 bit digital IF data to PC via
serial port i.e. UART. The serial data received was plotted in
real-time in MATLAB. Furthermore we apply various
functions to find the target speed in MATLAB. Generation of
RF signal from the optical source [12, 13] and using for radar
applications is the near-future research work.

REFERENCES
Fig. 4.Amplified IF out of Rx Chain
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Fig. 6.FFT of Amplified IF Out communcation system, wireless personal communications,
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Using this Doppler frequency we can easily calculate the
velocity of target. In this case Doppler frequency is 3 KHz and
thus the measured velocity is 87.3 m/s.

978-1-5386-3570-4/18/$31.00 ©2018 IEEE 1276