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

Meaningless bullshit

[mattjb0010]

The chip runs at a staggering speed of24 GHz (enabling it to transfer data as fast as the main network of the Internet)

How many Libraries of Congress is that?

Collision aviodance on cars at last

[MrRTFM]

(yes - of course we can disable it if we want to)
but wouldn't it be great to have the brakes applied if you lose attention for that one split second. Everyone I've known who has been in a car accident, (luckily they were minor) has said just that.

Unless you are James Bond, or just want to do some fancy driving a radar controlled braking system would be great.

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.

24Ghz link/chip or core speed?

[tota]

The arcticle is a little light on technical details, is 24Ghz the speed of the chip or the frequency used to scan/send the data?

Why can't I get my liquid nitrogen cooled 24 Ghz ahtlon64 then? I thought we weren't capable of making gates that would switch that fast?

Can someone clear up my confusion?

Re:24Ghz link/chip or core speed?

[Ancient_Hacker]

24GHz is the frequency of the radar signal, which determines the radar's spatial resulution. It's not the data rate, that's an inapt analogy. BTW it's unlikely an automatic braking system will be easy to design-- The rate of false positives is likely to be much too high. Small objects that are near a half-wavelength in size are likely to give strong reflections. So common road objects like pebbles, lane dots, falling rain, are likely to generate an exceedingly high screech-the-brakes rate.

Radar Detectors will become useless

[Anonymous Coward]

This will make those radar detectors (used to detect police radars in speed traps) virtually useless. Once every car is equipped with a radar, these detectors will beep continuously.

Maybe they can be replaced with very sensitive tri-sensor devices that test for a specific combination of: doughnuts, coffee, and bacon.

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?

Resolution

[Mr. Underhill]

If my early morning math is right the wave length of 24Ghz is about half an inch. Does that mean that the chip could distinguish distances as small as half an inch?

That would be really cool for a small robot if it could.

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: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.