Taking a Hybrid (Analog Beamsteering + Digital Signaling) Approach to Automotive Radar to Advance a Myriad of Highly Automated Driving Applications on the Road to Full Autonomy 2021-01-1005

The need for long-range, high-resolution and accuracy all-weather sensor is critical for a higher level of vehicular autonomy. Unlike cameras and lidars, radars offer these capabilities when designed well. Key target criteria for automotive radar are multimode operation with a large Field of View, high frame rates, and the ability to detect and resolve weaker targets in the presence of stronger ones. Existing radar providers and automotive Tier 1s can work with startups to eliminate the arduous steps to streamline the front-end antennas and ICs integration avoiding the complex and costly multi-layers Printed Circuit Boards (PCB) designs. The next big step in automotive radar is considering this “Lego” pieces building blocks for flexible and scalable modular architectures for multi-mode operation for high accuracy and precision targeting broad applications without the heavy time, resources, and cost to develop automotive radars for mass markets.

Metawave is building the first front-end beamformer Antenna in Package (AiP) with first multi-channel 77GHz beamforming Integrated Circuit (IC) that will be designed and tested with its full SPEKTRA radar. These AiP modules combined with advanced MIMO algorithms and AWARE object classifications deliver 5D radars for range, velocity, horizontal and vertical tracking, and real-time labeling. Being radar transceiver chip agnostic, SPEKTRA operates over the 76-81 GHz band and can be combined with multiple radar chips to operate in concert with or independently from any target operation.

The objective of this paper is to highlight key SPEKTRA aspects and functionalities in automotive radar and show the reader how a modular “building blocks” approach to building radar applications to reach very specific goals is achievable by combining tested and perfected innovative antennas, IC chips, AI software, and modular Tx and Rx chips.