LiDAR or radar? This is the question that every automotive vehicle (AV) engineer is asking themselves. But what if you didn't have to choose? With the advent of the mmWave revolution, it may be that the automotive industry can have the best of both worlds. Vayyar Imaging is one company using mmWave to bridge the gap between the two distinct types of sensors.
Both LiDAR and radar use the electro-magnetic field (EMF) to craft digital images of the environment. The two technologies, however, have a vastly different set of advantages and drawbacks.
Traditionally, radar emits signals at longer wavelengths to measure the distance of surrounding objects. This is effective when, for instance, a police officer wants to detect whether a car is going too fast. Due to the longer wavelength, radar signals work well in adverse weather conditions like rain and snow, but the technology suffers when it comes to detail and precision.
LiDAR sensors, by contrast, can generate high resolution point clouds of their surroundings. This is achieved by using laser signals, which are a much higher frequency and have shorter wavelengths. The drawback is that the smaller laser signals are easily disrupted by interference from smaller sources such as raindrops. The technology is also far more costly, with mechanical LiDAR sensors costing upwards of $70,000—more than the value of the vehicle on which it is mounted.
Vayyar Imaging built its system-on-a-chip (SOC) for AVs using a type of radar that emits mmWave signals, which are on the high-frequency, short wavelength end of the radio spectrum. This allows Vayyar’s sensor kit to get all the benefits from both types of tech.
“Our automotive sensors are powerful enough to enable radar with point cloud capabilities and have high enough resolution to differentiate between objects, even in bad lighting or harsh weather conditions,” said Raviv Melamed, Vayyar co-founder, CEO and chairman.
The automotive sensor kit is built with Vayyar’s 77-81Ghz ASIC and employs 48 transceivers to help the chip paint digital pictures of the road.
Vayyar Imaging was in the news earlier this year for its work in improving radar precision. Previous approaches to boosting resolution have had applications in robotics, for which a large array of radio antennas was used to help robots collect data in both vertical and horizontal axes.