A through-the-wall radar, built on a chip smaller than a grain of rice, has been developed by a team of researchers at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bangalore, led by Gaurab Banerjee, Associate Professor at the Department of Electrical Communication Engineering.
Developed using Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) technology, this radar has a single transmitter, three receivers, and an advanced frequency synthesizer capable of generating complex radar signals, all packed together into a tiny chip.
Its small size can enable mass production at a low cost. Such radars can have wide-ranging applications in the defence sector, as well as areas such as healthcare, transportation and agriculture, a statement from the Bengaluru-based Institute said.
"Only a handful of countries in the world today have the ability to put the entire electronics of a radar on a chip," says Mr Banerjee.
Radars work on the principle of bouncing a signal off an object and measuring the delay in the signal's return. These signals are analysed to identify the object - even reconstruct a crude image of it - or determine where it is or how fast it is moving. An extension of this technology is a through-the-wall radar (TWR), which works on the principle that radio waves can penetrate walls, when light cannot.
"TWR imaging has always been one of the most challenging radar design problems," says Mr Banerjee.
For one, according to the statement, the signal can get significantly damped while passing through walls.
To overcome this, radio waves consisting of a large number of frequencies need to be used, which can complicate the design. These radars also use a more complex signal, known as a chirp, which requires customized electronics such as a microwave transmitter, a receiver and a frequency synthesizer, the statement said.
With their design, the IISc team has now managed to squeeze all of these electronic components into a single, tiny chip.
They used new architectural and circuit design techniques to overcome challenges specific to radars - such as the design of a wide fractional bandwidth transceiver.
"The same design techniques that have enabled smaller and cheaper smartphones can now be used to miniaturize the complex electronics of a radar system into a small chip," says Mr Banerjee.
Although the chip was originally developed for airport security-related applications, Mr Banerjee's group is also exploring applications in other areas such as healthcare.
This research was funded by the IMPRINT programme of the Government of India, with additional financial contributions from the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) and the Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO). Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL), a defence PSU, has been an active industrial partner in this IMPRINT project since its inception.
Mr Banerjee's team is currently exploring various options to commercialise this technology.
