A 241-271 GHz Sparse MIMO Radar With Antenna-Integrated Transmitter and Receiver Chips

A 241-271 GHz 3TX-4RX sparse and linear multi-input multi-output (MIMO) radar is demonstrated with the TX antenna spacing of 1.2 mm and the RX antenna spacings of 1.8 mm and 3.0 mm. Using coprime array technique, the sidelobe levels of the virtual array are significantly reduced. Multiple on-chip antenna CMOS transceiver dies are mounted on a 4-layer Rogers printed circuit board (PCB). Ku-band offset stepped-frequency continuous wave (SFCW) signals are applied for TX and RX chips to emit and receive a sub-THz signal, respectively. The measured range and angular resolutions were < 8.0 mm and < 8.0°, respectively. The developed array system is extendable and useful for degraded vision environmental (DVE) imaging, high resolution nondestructive imaging, and microscopy applications.