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:Meaningless bullshit

[larkost]

It could be a component, but only one piece. The really tough part if creating the software that intelligently drives. There are so many oddball cases you have to deal with in driving that it will be a very long time before this is possible.

Look how much trouble the teams are having putting together vehicles to race each other at 30 MPH on a closed course in the DARPA challenge. Many of them are using radar in conjunction with laser and visual systems in order to put together a world-view, and they are still having major problems running a course without other drivers.

Now add in all the erratic drivers, random animals, and kids running out into streets, and I don't think we are even close to having self-driving cars.

Traffic monitors

[CCCP4Life]

Imagine placing these chips on top of light poles every 1/2 mile on big city highways. Now enable them to relay information to each other and broadcast it via Bluetooth or something like that.

In your car have a GPS map that has wireless capability to these units. You can get a real-time traffic density map of the city and decide if you want to take the freeway home or take another route...

Seems like a pretty easy app to set up also.