UTS and Andar Technologies have formed a 3-year partnership to improve the radar sensing accuracy for autonomous vehicles.
Andar Technologies, an Australian fabless integrated circuit (IC) design company, has signed a 3-year partnership with UTS to create the next generation of cost-effective, silicon-based radar sensors. The collaborative R&D project aims to increase the reliability of self-driving vehicles, improving the sensing accuracy of the cars surrounds.
The project will provide a solid foundation for silicon-based transmitter design with beam-steering capability beyond 100GHz in a cost-effective silicon-based technology. The current operating frequency of radar systems is 76-81 GHz with 200MHz bandwidth.
Dr Xi Zhu, UTS Lead Investigator, says that the development of an ultra-high resolution wireless sensing system will increase safety for autonomous drivers.
Current radar sensors used in vehicles have limited resolution, making it difficult for them to distinguish objects close to each other, potentially causing serious accidents. The new system will provide a highly detailed image of the environment in a wide field of view that can detect obstacles on the side of the road and smaller targets like a bike or a person, even if they are slightly covered by a larger object like tree trunk.
Frank Zhang, Andar Technologies MD, sees the collaboration as an opportunity to improve the current technologies and maintain Australia’s reputation as a leader in this field.
We are pleased to work with the team at UTS who are committed to the development of next-generation radar solutions. This innovation will replace existing costly technologies with more cost-effective silicon-based technologies and miniaturised silicon-based RFIC designs with relatively high RF output power ay 100+ GHz, which are not well established in the market at present.
The 3-year project will take place at UTS Tech Lab, an industry R&D facility in Botany, Sydney.