Efficient Frame Structure Design of PMCW Radar Based on Golay Sequence in 802.11ad Preamble

Phase-modulated continuous-wave (PMCW) radar systems have been gaining attention as next-generation radar systems due to their advantages, such as the availability of detecting high-velocity targets, multiple-input–multiple-output operation capability, and simplified transmitter architecture. Because the autocorrelation property of phase modulation codes plays a crucial role in determining the system performance of PMCW radar, proper signal design is essential. Golay complementary sequences are well-suited for PMCW radar systems because of their outstanding autocorrelation characteristics. These properties yield a sharp mainlobe and suppressed sidelobes in the range profile, which, in turn, enhance the accuracy of range estimation. To make more efficient use of these Golay sequences, we propose a signal-processing method based on frequency-domain (FD) accumulation with Doppler shift compensation. In addition, we propose an efficient frame design method based on the frame structure used in the IEEE 802.11ad preamble. The combination of the proposed frame design and signal-processing method enables significant improvements in Doppler robustness and time efficiency. ... mehrSimulation results confirmed that the proposed FD accumulation with the Doppler shift compensation method improves the peak power loss ratio (PPLR) by approximately 4 dB compared to the conventional accumulation method. In addition, the proposed frame design outperforms existing Golay-based designs, with improvements of up to 13 dB in the PPLR, 19 dB in the peak sidelobe level ratio (PSLR), and 11 dB in the integrated sidelobe level ratio (ISLR). Moreover, it achieved superior performance when compared to a widely used pseudorandom binary sequence (PRBS)-based design, with an enhancement of 0.68 dB in PSLR and 10.57 dB in the ISLR.