DSP inside TI radar puts AI on edge

An article written by Junko Yoshida for EETIMES – The limitations of automotive radar systems are well known. Traditional radar lacks resolution and can’t distinguish nearby objects. Radars are also known to sound false alarms and they consistently fail to process information fast enough to be helpful on the highway. However, automotive experts also recognize the redeeming virtues of radar technology, most notably its ability to work in all weather conditions. They believe that radars can team with vision sensors as the critical sensing technologies going into highly automated vehicles.

Knowing both its drawbacks and advantages, a bigger question is where does radar go from here.

Texas Instruments hopes to answer this question with millimeter-wave radar chips built on standard in-house RF CMOS technology. Introduced a year ago, TI’s radar chips offer “less than 5 cm resolution accuracy, range detection to hundreds of meters and velocity of up to 300Km/h,” according to the company.

Sameer Wasson, TI’s general manager of radar & analytic processors, recently told EE Times that after a year of pitching the company’s radar chips, his team is seeing substantial traction for both automotive and industrial applications.

Pointing out that TI’s AWR1642 mmWave sensors [built for the automotive market] are already in mass production, Wasson said that he expects to see TI’s radar chips inside OEMs’ vehicles “at the end of this year to mid-2019.” Even more exciting to Wasson are “revelations in the industrial-side of applications” for the company’s radar chips. TI’s IWR1642 mmWave sensors [designed for the industrial sector] are finding applications that let them go inside everything from smart buildings to factory floors and transportation systems… Full article

Source: www.eetimes.com