Radar Modeling for Autonomous Driving: What Sensors Actually See
Radar is the sensor that autonomous driving can’t work without, doesn’t fully understand, and frequently underestimates. Camera gives you texture and color. LiDAR gives you precise geometry. Radar gives you something both of them don’t: direct velocity measurement, all-weather reliability, and the ability to see through the annoyances — rain, fog, dust — that blind the other sensors at exactly the moments when you most need to see. The limitation is angular resolution. A camera pixel corresponds to a very small angle. A radar beam is much wider. Multiple targets at similar range but different angles blur together. This isn’t a failure of implementation — it’s physics. ...