Mitigating Automotive Radar Interference using Onboard Intelligent Reflective Surface

The use of automotive radars is gaining popularity as a means to enhance a vehicle's sensing capabilities. However, these radars can suffer from interference caused by transmissions from other radars mounted on nearby vehicles. To address this issue, we investigate the use of an onboard intelligent reflective surface (IRS) to artificially increase a vehicle's effective radar cross section (RCS), or its "electromagnetic visibility." Our proposed method utilizes the IRS's ability to form a coherent reflection of the incident radar waveform back towards the source radar, thereby improving radar performance under interference. We evaluated both passive and active IRS options. Passive IRS, which does not support reflection amplification, was found to be counter-productive and actually decreased the vehicle's effective RCS instead of enhancing it. In contrast, active IRS, which can amplify the reflection power of individual elements, effectively combats all types of automotive radar interference when the reflective elements are configured with a 15-35 dB reflection gain.