Impact of misalignments with rotatable dihedral calibration target in mm-wave polarimetric MIMO automotive radar

The impact of misalignment errors, specifically yaw and pitch deviations, on dihedral reflectors’ scattering responses is studied for millimeter-wave polarimetric multiple-input multiple-output automotive radars. Through simulations and experiments at 77 GHz, it is demonstrated that significant radar cross-section (RCS) variations of up to 30 dB can occur within small misalignment ranges (0 ∘ –2 ∘ ). The findings emphasize that larger dihedral dimensions can amplify sensitivity to misalignment in some specific misalignment scenarios, offering trade-offs between reflection strength and robustness to misalignment errors. The study also explores near-field effects, revealing notable discrepancies between the dihedral near- and far-field scattering response in misalignment scenarios. A polarimetric calibration method is applied to show how polarimetric channel phase response is affected under such conditions, achieving stable results in specific configurations (e.g., dihedral at 0 ∘ under yaw misalignment angle). This study addresses key challenges in calibration accuracy, including the high sensitivity of RCS to small angular misalignments, the trade-offs between reflector dimensions and robustness, and the influence of near-field effects in practical setups.