Automotive radar developer NXP Semiconductors has launched a suite of new radar sensor chipset solutions, which it claims can provide 360° coverage of a vehicle.
“Radar has evolved from just detecting other cars’ velocity and distance to providing imaging radar’s high-resolution object and feature detection for precisely mapping the car’s surroundings,” remarked Torsten Lehmann, EVP and GM, radio frequency processing, at NXP.
“Our new radar sensor solutions can help customers cover NCAP requirements to make driving safe, and also address the frontier of ADAS sensing on the path toward fully autonomous vehicles.”
The solutions, consisting of new radar processors and 77GHz transceivers, offer scalable configurations which the company says address NCAP requirements for corner and front radar applications, while offering 4D imaging radar a commercially viable path to volume production. NXP notes that 4D imaging radar expands radar’s capabilities from measuring range and speed to include direction, angle of arrival and elevation measurement.
The company, which is headquartered in the Netherlands, states that imaging radar significantly enhances performance by delivering multimodal capabilities which extend currently available L2+ features, such as highway pilot and lane change assistance, by offering super-resolution images for precise environmental mapping and scene understanding. It highlights that this enhanced “understanding” will be an important part of enabling full autonomy in urban settings where vehicles and vulnerable road users create driving complexity.
The combination of the company’s S32R45 radar processor and the TEF82xx transceivers is stated to deliver the fine angular resolution, processing power and range required to not only distinguish between small objects in the distance, but also to accurately separate and classify vehicles and vulnerable road users like cyclists or pedestrians in crowded environments.
Meanwhile, targeting cost-effective and small footprint NCAP corner radar requirements for high volume vehicle production, NXP says its solutions also provide scalability for long-range front radar and advanced multi-mode use cases like simultaneous blind-spot detection, lane change assistance and elevation sensing.
These advanced applications require extended range and significantly enhanced angular resolution for detecting and clearly separating multiple objects simultaneously and provide the ability to give 360° coverage around a vehicle.
