Radar/Wireless Transmitter on a Chip

dganapa writes "Researchers at the California Institute of Technology, headed by Dr. Ali Hajimiri, have developed a low-cost radar system on a silicon chip. The entire system has been designed from the ground up on silicon, thus leading to reduced cost as well as robustness in response to design variations and changes in environment. The chip runs at a staggering speed of24 GHz (enabling it to transfer data as fast as the main network of the Internet) and can soon lift wireless, high-frequency communication to a whole new level. The radar as such is not as powerful as a conventional radar but because of its cost-effectiveness, a number of them can be coupled together to perform really well. A related NY Times article is here. A recent article from Slashdot shows that radar technology is increasingly being implemented in the automobile industry. This current chip is sure to be much more successful than its predecessors as far as the automobile industry is concerned, but whether or not its processing speed will become important in the computer industry remains to be seen."

Comments

Re:Frequency allocation for 24 GHz?

[OPTiX_iNC]

24 GHz is licenced to the HAM's in the US, yet another way they are taking away our bandwidth.

Re:Radar Detectors will become useless

[boobsea]

Lets see the most common American radar bands..

X Band operates on ~10.5Ghz
K Band operates on ~22.4Ghz
Ka Band operates on ~34-35Ghz
(source: http://www.snooper-uk.com/radar_laser_speedtrap_ba nds.htm

The article states the frequency being used of is 24Ghz, so the only possibly problem might be with K band detectors.

I dont think they would put both in the same band anyway.. wouldn't that interfere with the radar guns themselves?

Re:Application Errors in the Article

[Garak]

Yea, who ever wrote this article has no clue what they are talking about...

Hajimiri's chip runs at 24 GHz (24 billion cycles in one second), an extremely high speed, which makes it possible to transfer data wirelessly at speeds available only to the backbone of the Internet (the main network of connections that carry most of the traffic on the Internet

24GHz is just the operating frequency not the bandwidth. You do have alot of free bandwidth, free is in not sold already, but your still not going to get close to OC-192 speeds. The most rf bandwidth your going to get is maybe 500 Mhz and with 802.11g tech your getting around 20mbit of useable bandwidth out of 6Mhz. So (500/6)*20 = 1666, thats 1.67 gbit, not bad, but nowhere close to backbone speeds of 12gbit.

This technology could replace the dish, but it won't be the size of your thumbnail. A phased array could be used to obtain a fare amount of gain with a 12x12" panel.

Re:Collision aviodance on cars at last

[gnugie]

Both Cadillac and Jaguar sell vehicles with Radar-based Adaptive Cruise Control, which will brake for you if needed.

Check out the Cadillac XLR.