Real-Time Millimeter Wave Radar Simulation

This paper summarizes the ideas involved in implementing an imaging radar simulator based on using modern computer graphics hardware. Recent technologies were heavily used, like vertex and fragment shaders, reaching performances up to 90 Hz on a standard workstation. For greater realism, radar shadows were generated, implementing shadow map techniques in the programmable graphics hardware. Furthermore, a Phong-like approach (Phong, B. T., "Illumination for Computer Generated Pictures," Communications of the ACM, Vol. 18, No. 6, June 1975, pp. 311-317) is presented for modeling the bidirectional reflectance distribution function of the mean normalized radar cross section. In the past, different models have been proposed for this task. While being accurate in most cases, they lack an intuitive understanding. The new model is intuitive by making use of categories of diffuse and specular reflections. Although it is computationally more efficient than previous approaches, it is composed of only a few parameters. Finally, examples are given of setups for different types of terrain. The particular implementation is tailored to imitate millimeter wave radar but can be extended for other types of radar systems, and even other sensor types.