OFDM digital radar design for Integrated Sensing and Communication (ISAC) in 6G networks

Abstract

In this project a digital Frequency Modulated Continuous Wave (FMCW) radar was designed using a Orthogonal Freqeuncy Division Multiplexing (OFDM) pulse compatible with the 5G standard. A system level simulation was created to test the design using MATLAB. The design was then implemented using System Verilog. Two iterations of the design were created using purpose made modules and another one combining IP modules with purpose-made ones. The first iteration was tested on a MATLAB testbench based on the system-level simulation. Finally, the digital radar was combined with an existing project to create a testbench that was run on the ZCU111 development board. As a result of this project, it was found that 5G pulses offer good range resolution but poor speed resolution. Also, the effect of quantization noise for a 12 bit word length was found to be negligible. Finally, it was found that adequately scaling the signal in the FMCW OFDM radar design was fundamental to avoid overflow conditions.