Recent advances in technologies, architectures, and applications of highly-integrated low-power radars have been presented herein. Both mm-wave transceiver and baseband DSP have been discussed. The evolution in semiconductor technologies allows the low-cost and low-power integration of mm-wave radar transceiver and DSP unit in the same CMOS chip with performances suitable for several radar applications: automotive, e-health, security, vital signs detection - to name just a few. Since DSP and A/D converter are already available as single-chip CMOS solutions we foresee the future migration from single-board radar to single-package or even single-chip radar systems. For SRR operating at several tens of GHz the on-chip integration of the antenna becomes feasible. The main equations needed to explore the radar design space are presented and used to define the architecture and the main parameters of highly-integrated FMCW and pulsed radars. Two scenarios are analyzed: a 77 GHz automotive LRR using an FFT DSP baseband chain and a low-cost pulsed SRR for e-health applications. The latter works in the 3-10 GHz UWB spectrum, with a correlator-type receiver avoiding the use of a dedicated DSP hardware unit. Recent results achieved when designing in CMOS technology key components of the highly-integrated radar have also been discussed: a low-power threshold-configuring SAR ADC, a pipeline cascade FFT co-processor, mm-wave LNA, and on-chip integrated double-slot antennas
Advances in technologies, architectures, and applications of highly-integrated low-power radars
NERI, BRUNO;SAPONARA, SERGIO
2012-01-01
Abstract
Recent advances in technologies, architectures, and applications of highly-integrated low-power radars have been presented herein. Both mm-wave transceiver and baseband DSP have been discussed. The evolution in semiconductor technologies allows the low-cost and low-power integration of mm-wave radar transceiver and DSP unit in the same CMOS chip with performances suitable for several radar applications: automotive, e-health, security, vital signs detection - to name just a few. Since DSP and A/D converter are already available as single-chip CMOS solutions we foresee the future migration from single-board radar to single-package or even single-chip radar systems. For SRR operating at several tens of GHz the on-chip integration of the antenna becomes feasible. The main equations needed to explore the radar design space are presented and used to define the architecture and the main parameters of highly-integrated FMCW and pulsed radars. Two scenarios are analyzed: a 77 GHz automotive LRR using an FFT DSP baseband chain and a low-cost pulsed SRR for e-health applications. The latter works in the 3-10 GHz UWB spectrum, with a correlator-type receiver avoiding the use of a dedicated DSP hardware unit. Recent results achieved when designing in CMOS technology key components of the highly-integrated radar have also been discussed: a low-power threshold-configuring SAR ADC, a pipeline cascade FFT co-processor, mm-wave LNA, and on-chip integrated double-slot antennasI documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
