Physics-Based, Real-Time MIMO Radar Simulation for Autonomous Driving

Advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) and autonomous vehicles (AV) require massive amounts of sensor data to test and train driving algorithms and to design sensor hardware. In many practical cases, these data must be generated at or beyond real-time rates of up to 30 sensor frames per second (fps). General-purpose, high-fidelity radar response simulators can take minutes or hours to simulate a single coherent processing interval (CPI) comprised of hundreds of radar chirps over many MIMO channels. This paper presents an end-to-end GPU implementation of the shooting and bouncing rays (SBR) method combined with algorithmic accelerations to achieve over 160 fps for a single-channel radar operating in a realistically complex traffic environment and sustained real-time performance for five single-channel radars or one 2 0 - channel radar. In addition, this paper illustrates, using open and standardized interfaces, the integration of this technology in closed loop simulation.