Using 60GHz radar to enable smart sensing in industrial and automotive applications

In just a few decades, the world has seen the replacement of human-operated machinery and vehicles with intelligent versions now operated autonomously or with less human intervention. With such rapid growth, the industrial and automotive markets have a tremendous need for innovative sensing technologies to help buildings, cities and automobiles sense the world around them and make more intelligent decisions.

Engineers are beginning to better understand the benefits of millimeter-wave (mmWave) radar-based sensing in applications: their high-resolution detection capabilities, flexibility in different environments and non-privacy-invasive sensing. mmWave sensor implementations are both increasing and expanding to a wider set of applications, including elderly monitoring, automotive in-cabin monitoring and robotics.

Frequency regulations can restrict applications that leverage mmWave radar sensing. While Europe and China have more flexibility in the use of the 76- to 81-GHz band, the United States restricts this band to advanced driver assistance system (ADAS) applications, and has assigned the 60- to 64-GHz band to industrial applications such as people counting, robotics and traffic monitoring.