OT: Radar interference?

[Tim+]

In a car group I follow a number of members have had problems with the collision avoidance systems in their cars. I believe this system, like adaptive cruise control, uses a forward facing radar to detect objects in front of the cars.

These owners are getting occasional system error messages that are repeatable in the same geographic areas. One spot in particular is outside Kendal telephone exchange (on Blackhall road).

It?s a fairly big building covered in mobile phone mast etc.

Is it likely that radio interference from mobile masts could be causing the issue? My own car (same brand, different model) hasn?t had any issues.

Tim

[polygonum_on_google]

Both cars I drive regularly have collision detection/avoidance systems. But only one has adaptive cruise control.

The one with ACC very occasionally gets as far as giving a warning - typically on a dual carriageway with a right-turn lane with a gap in the central reservation. It detects a vehicle turning right, slowing down, and thinks my maintaining speed is wrong.

The other one has some very wayward issues. The speed limit detection quite often shows the wrong speed. But this isn't just a camera missing or mis-reading a sign. (That would be easy to understand.) It does things like display 30 but with a warning that I am speeding - even when my actual speed is close to 20. And other failures for the system to react as you'd expect. There is a particular area this happens more than anywhere else. It is just about possible that ship radar is affecting it. Other than that, I have no idea. The first car has no such issues. And some days there is no issue at all.

[brian]

In message [e-mail]>, Tim+ [e-mail] writes

Some collision avoidance systems are on 24GHz close to 5G mobile phone frequencies . Others are on 77GHz .

There's been articles in the tech publications about potential interference.

However there's no 5G in Kendal, unless it's appeared recently.

Brian

[Tim+]

Maybe system testing going on? Latest info from affected motorist is that there *is* a 5G mast there (not that I?d know what one looks like). Do they look different?

Tim

[Andy Burns]

I though the flavour of 5G being rolled-out in the UK was all sub-6GHz, rather than the mmWave that USA seems to be getting? I daresay there will be a few trial sites for the latter over here ... but UK/EU versions of recent phones are different from US models.

[Brian Gaff (Sofa]

It could be, since normally its a cross modulation or leaky rf sensitive circuit which is affected. Back in the day the reverse was true of course. I had an amplifier in my bedroom which could pick up the pulses from radar as they fired in my direction, indeed even the echoes as well. One assumes that some kind of detection was going on inside the amp due to the strong pulses coming from the radars on the roof of a nearby radar makers building. Its no different to the way my old Sanyo walkman clone used to pick up taxis while playing tapes on the train at various places on the London to Leeds train.

On a car though, it may well be just that a particular unit needs some screening or bonding to earth somewhere. Might be worth talking to an owners club or one of the sites about that particular make. A friend had a bmw mini which had a great electronic dashboard, but one day driving past a site with large aerials in North London, all sorts of lights and alarms went off, but the car kept going. Turned out to be a poor earth bonding connection, probably there since it was made. Its this modern world we live in, I suppose. This is why I'm a little worried by self driving cars, since I doubt anyone would test for RF Interference corrupting the data. Brian

[Brian Gaff (Sofa]

Yes there is confusion about how much use of 5G is on the new Iphones in this country. One would hope that its just a software configurable system, or I can see a lot of disappointed users. Brian

[Andy Burns]

For the newest iPhones and Google pixels too, it seems the millimetre wave antenna is missing (and probably using a different chipset without the relevant radio)

I think were a long way off from having multigigabit bandwidth beamed from every lamp-post, even in city centres ...

[polygonum_on_google]

I don't think there is any confusion! USA models have mmWave, rest of world have sub-6GHz. Look/feel down the side for a little "window" - right side with the phone's screen pointing at your face.

There is no active mmWave in the UK (maybe, of course, some testing/research).

[williamwright]

How did you know it was picking up the echoes?

Bill