EFFICIENT SIMULATION TOOL TO CHARACTERIZE THE RADAR CROSS SECTION OF A PEDESTRIAN IN NEAR FIELD

A simulation tool to characterize the radar cross section of a pedestrian in near field is presented in the paper. The tool has been developed in order to predict and optimize the performance of the short-range radar systems employed in autonomous vehicle operations. It is based on an analytical model which joins the modeling of the human body with the theory of the physical optics. Our studies first focused on the implementation of the electromagnetic code where the human body, the radiation properties of the antenna and the scenario to be analyzed have been analytically expressed. Then, the proposed model has been validated in terms of accuracy comparing simulated and experimental data regarding the radar cross section of a metal sphere and of an adult, in the frequency range 23-28 GHz. In the end, an evaluation of the performance in terms of required computer memory and execution time has been carried out, comparing the proposed simulation tool with other numerical computational methods.