Automotive Radar Sensors and Congested Radio Spectrum: An Urban Electronic Battlefield?

As automotive radars become more widespread, the heavily occupied RF spectrum will resemble an electronic battlefield in an urban environment. Radar will face a combination of unintentional or intentional jamming attacks, and designers must implement counter-jamming techniques like ones used in electronic warfare (EW). An automotive radar could typically experience a denial or deceptive jamming attack. Denial jamming blinds the victim radar.

This technique reduces the signal-to-noise ratio and, as a result, the probability of target detection is degraded. On the other hand, deceptive jamming makes victim radar “think” there are false targets. The victim radar loses the ability to track real targets and, hence, the victim’s vehicle behavior is severely influenced.