NXP Semiconductors has announced a complete suite of radar sensor chipset solutions that can surround vehicles in a 360-degree safety cocoon and enable the identification and classification capabilities of imaging radar. Comprised of new radar processors and 77-GHz transceivers, the solutions offer carmakers flexible and scalable configurations that address NCAP (New Car Assessment Program) requirements for corner and front radar applications while offering what the company says is 4D imaging radar’s first commercially viable path to volume production. 4D imaging radar expands radar’s capabilities from measuring range and speed to include direction, angle of arrival, and elevation measurement.
“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,” said Torsten Lehmann, EVP and GM, Radio Frequency Processing, 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 towards fully autonomous vehicles.”
As one of the first companies to broadly deliver 77-GHz RF CMOS (radio-frequency complementary metal-oxide semiconductor) radar technology in high-volume mass production, and as the developer of the S32 automotive processing platform, NXP aims to help its customers optimize their total cost of ownership with maximum scalability and re-use across different radar systems, thereby optimizing their own R&D efficiency.
The new NXP solutions together could reduce the 1.3 million yearly road deaths and represent radar’s evolution as a central part of driver assistance systems. Radar is a core advanced driving assistance (ADAS) technology for both traditional carmakers focused on SAE automated driving Levels 1-3 and for mobility as service innovators developing robotaxi and delivery applications for Levels 4 and 5 automation.
NXP’s new suite of radar sensing solutions meet both scenarios and provide an optimized approach with critical scalability and design re-use to help carmakers address the needs of their diverse brand and model portfolios. This flexibility enables performance tailoring for the appropriate use case, reduces R&D effort, and can speed up time to market.
“Without any doubt, advanced driver assistance systems and autonomous driving—and along with that radar sensors, have been going through a very dynamic evolution quite recently,” said Matthias Feulner, Senior Director, ADAS, at NXP Semiconductors. “Scalability has become quite essential.”
However, when it comes to radar sensors, there isn’t really a one-size-fits-all solution for all use cases, he says. As a semiconductor company, NXP provides a variety of chipsets to radar Tier Ones like Aptiv, Bosch, Continental, and Denso. Engineers at those companies would be looking for the specs they need to improve their systems’ functionalities for their intended purposes.
The company is enabling the ongoing evolution of radar with two new solutions for imaging radar and corner/front radar.
Imaging radar is a groundbreaking technology that significantly enhances radar’s performance. In the case of NXP’s chipset, it enables greater than 300 m (984 ft) range and high-resolution point cloud output. It delivers multi-modal capabilities and extends today’s available L2+ features, like highway pilot and lane change assistance, by offering high-resolution images for precise scene mapping and understanding. The enhanced “understanding” is an important part of enabling full autonomy in urban settings where vehicles and vulnerable road users create greater driving complexity.
The combination of NXP’s new S32R45 radar processor and TEF82xx transceivers delivers imaging radar with 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.
It has up to 16x enhancement in angular resolution to less than 1 degree through 192 virtual antennae. The highly optimized radar processor is said to reduce implementation cost and power consumption by up to 50% compared to general-purpose FPGA (field-programmable gate array) implementations.
Targeting cost-effective and small footprint NCAP corner radar requirements for high-volume vehicle production, the other NXP solution also provides 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 surround the car in a 360-degree safety cocoon.
NXP’s new S32R294 radar processors combined with the NXP TEF82xx transceivers provide a scalable solution that helps carmakers address both NCAP and advanced corner radar as well as long-range front radar sensor requirements in an effective way, while allowing tailoring for individual use cases.
The front radar supports greater than 300 m reach for long-range radar. A 6-dB improvement in phase noise and support of cascaded radar transceivers provide enhanced ability to separate objects at long distances.
The optimized corner-radar chipset aims for value in the cost-sensitive NCAP applications. Its dual-transceiver cascade option creates 48 virtual antennae, enabling up to a four-times resolution improvement and elevation sensing.
The new NXP radar solutions are now sampling with customers and will be available in mass production during 2021. To learn more about them, visit www.nxp.com/radar.
