Broadband mm-Wave Sensors for Industrial and Security Applications

Within the last 30 years commercial mm-wave technology was mainly driven by the automotive industry. Having started at 24 GHz, the suppliers in Europe are now forced to switch to the 76-81 GHz frequency band due to administrative regulations. As a consequence, great efforts have been done in developing mm-wave components suitable for low cost mass production. Nowadays, chip sets or even single chip frontends are available, mainly based on GaAs or SiGe technology. Even though these devices are intended for automotive sensors, the technology is also available for fields with low volume and even niche applications. The dissertation describes the development of wideband sensors at 79 GHz suited to address many potential applications within different areas like industrial and security sensing.