How do I design a compact radar sensor for a robotic collision avoidance system?

Designing a compact radar sensor for robotic collision avoidance uses modern 60 GHz or 77 GHz radar-on-chip solutions that integrate the complete radar front end (transmitter, receiver, ADC, and digital signal processor) in a single IC package, enabling a complete radar sensor in a PCB footprint of 20x20 mm or smaller. The design process involves: selecting the radar SoC (Texas Instruments IWR6843/AWR1843 at 60/77 GHz, Infineon BGT60TR13C at 60 GHz, or NXP TEF82xx at 77 GHz; selection depends on required range, number of TX/RX channels, and processing capability), designing the antenna array (patch antenna arrays printed directly on the PCB; a 2x4 patch array provides 10-15 dBi gain with approximately 40-degree beamwidth in elevation and 80-degree in azimuth; the antenna design is tightly coupled to the PCB stack-up and must use low-loss substrate material like Rogers RO3003 or RO4835), implementing the FMCW signal processing chain (chirp configuration for the desired range and velocity resolution, 2D FFT for range-Doppler map generation, CFAR detection, and point cloud generation), and integrating collision avoidance logic (tracking detected objects, predicting collision trajectories, and generating avoidance commands to the robot controller). The resulting sensor can detect a person at 10-30 meters, a wall at 30-50 meters, and operate at an update rate of 10-30 Hz with total power consumption under 2 watts.