Radar, which is one of the three main sensors in automobiles, has not been regarded as the main sensor in vehicles until recently. The main reason is that the AEB assembly rate has improved. Millimeter wave radar has the advantages of speed measurement, ranging, and all-weather work. It can be supported. Demand that the remaining sensors cannot meet.

The evolution from ADAS to high-level autonomous driving has promoted the demand for millimeter-wave radar and also changed the face of the traditional automotive millimeter-wave radar industry. In the entire radar product, the chip has a great influence on the performance of the radar. As a giant in the traditional radar chip market, NXP has also been deeply involved in the millimeter wave radar segment for a long time.

Yang Chang, product manager of millimeter-wave radar at NXP Greater China, said in an interview that the main advantages of millimeter-wave radar are speed measurement, ranging, and all-weather. Therefore, the ADAS/AD system from L1 to L5 will occupy a very important position, which is widely deployed in existing new models.

The research of vehicle-mounted millimeter-wave radar began in the 1960s, and the research was mainly carried out in developed countries such as Germany, the United States, and Japan. The early development of in-vehicle millimeter-wave radar was slow, and after the 21st century, it began to enter a vigorous development period with the growth of automotive market demand.

One of the shortcomings of traditional millimeter-wave radar, low-angle resolution has always been a key bottleneck for the industry.

Imaging radar is a subset of on-board millimeter-wave radar, and is named for its high angular resolution that provides clear images. Angular resolution refers to the ability to distinguish objects in the same range and at the same relative speed, while being able to identify static objects at high resolution.

Yang Chang said that the main features of imaging millimeter-wave radar are the original basis, high angular resolution in the horizontal and vertical directions, high range resolution, and dense target points. At the application layer, pedestrians, motor vehicles, and non-vehicles can be identified and classified. Motor vehicles, to achieve the modeling of the surrounding environment of the body, high-definition maps and other functions But at present, it is only configured in the very few high-end brand models, and the electronic architecture is not unified, and there is still much room for development.

At present, most cars are still in the stage of popularization of ADAS (advanced driver assistance system) application. In this stage, millimeter wave radar has played a big role.

Due to the continuous improvement of automobile safety standards in various countries, advanced driving assistance systems for active safety technology have shown a rapid development trend in recent years. Automobile millimeter wave radar has become a mainstream option recognized by automotive electronics manufacturers because it can work around the clock, and has huge market demand. The popularity of ADAS is a prerequisite for the realization of autonomous driving in the future, and is the technical basis for improving the active safety performance of automobiles.

Yang Chang believes that in the evolution to L4 and higher levels of autonomous driving, imaging radars will have more transceiver antennas, more powerful computing power, more data transmission interfaces, higher data transmission rates, and lower Power consumption and cost, etc. In terms of performance alone, in terms of angular resolution and point cloud density, imaging radars will be closer to lidars. In terms of speed and distance, imaging radars will even perform better than lidars (thanks to millimeter waves Radar system).

Whether imaging radar can replace lidar, Yang Chang pointed out that it depends on the electronic and electrical architecture of the OEM.

The ADAS system at the current level of L1/L2 is mainly composed of millimeter-wave radar and cameras. The millimeter wave radar can detect the distance, speed and angle of the target, and the camera can identify the traffic signal, lane line, the spatial location of the target, and semantically segment the scene. At the same time, they work together to achieve more stable target detection, tracking, and classification. This system can meet the system requirements of L2+ level ADAS in terms of cost, compliance with vehicle regulations, and coverage of multiple application scenarios.

In the future, based on the original advantages, imaging millimeter-wave radar will improve the angular resolution, range resolution, and maximum detection distance in the horizontal and vertical directions.

Lidar has great advantages in self-positioning and map construction due to its extremely high angular resolution, so it may be possible to interact with imaging millimeter-wave radar, cameras, ultrasonic radar and other sensors in automatic driving systems at L3 and above It is a redundant system. Of course, first of all, it also needs to solve the problems of cost and vehicle regulations.

According to market research agency Plunkeet Research, there are nearly 70 million automotive millimeter-wave radars worldwide this year, with an average annual compound growth rate of about 24% from 2015 to 2020. For the future radar market, Yang Chang said that from the perspective of the global radar market, Tier1 and OEMs in Europe focus on some projects with mass production orders, mainly L1-L2 millimeter wave radar, and imaging radar mainly serves some high-end brands. At present, the number of high-end cars is not very large. Many start-up companies in Silicon Valley in the United States are conducting imaging radar research, which is more forward-looking. The domestic radar market is relatively diverse, ranging from front-mounted and rear-mounted vehicles to intelligent transportation, security, industry, and IOT. Imaging radar is only one of its branches, serving some specific automotive and non-vehicle applications.

Yang Chang believes that imaging radar is a more sophisticated and complex millimeter-wave radar technology, and will not become the main theme of the radar market in a short period of time. End users will also be more high-end vehicles or high-end industrial applications.

NXP has been cultivating in the field of millimeter-wave imaging radar for decades, knowing that the landing of imaging radar products is not simply the number of antennas, and the stacking of general-purpose kernel computing power. NXP will cooperate with industry-leading Tier1 and OEMs to provide high transmit power, high IF bandwidth, high sweep frequency bandwidth, high sampling rate, low noise, low power consumption microwave integrated circuit (MMIC), and built-in FFT acceleration , Data compression, matrix operation accelerated high-function safety-grade signal processor, to help mass production of imaging radar.