Interference mitigation in automotive radar systems by artificial doppler modulation

A method of operating an automotive radar system that includes a radar transmitter unit for transmitting radar waveforms towards a scene, a radar receiving unit for receiving radar waveforms that have been reflected by a target in the scene, and an evaluation and control unit for decoding range-Doppler information from the received waveforms. The method includes: transmitting a first sequence of radar waveforms (xTx) and a second sequence of radar waveforms ({tilde over (x)}Tx,k) towards the scene that differs from the first transmitted sequence of radar waveforms (xTx) by predetermined phase shifts (φk) such that each radar waveform ({tilde over (x)}Tx,k) of the second sequence has a different predetermined phase shift (φk). First range-Doppler information and second range-Doppler information are decoded. Deviations of the second range-Doppler information from the first range-Doppler information are compared to at least one predetermined deviation value. Based on the results of the comparing, a potential interference condition is identified.