Metawave Delivers First 77GHz Analog Beamsteering 3D Radar to Enable Safe and Intelligent Driving

On July 27, Metawave, an American millimeter wave radar company, announced that it had delivered the automotive industry's first 76-81 GHz beamformer chip alpha sample and evaluation board to MIRISE Technologies, a joint venture between DENSO and Toyota Motor Corporation. The joint venture was established in 2020 and focuses on the research and development of next-generation automotive semiconductors. It has worked closely with the Metawave team to evaluate beamformer chips and beam steering radars.

(Image source: Metawave)

In 2020, Metawave successfully demonstrated the industry's first award-winning SPEKTRA™ analog beamsteering radar using its original discrete phase shifter components. The SPEKTRA radar provides the most accurate and intelligent automotive radar available today, capable of clearly and consistently detecting vehicles up to 300 meters away and pedestrians up to 200 meters away, with the highest angular resolution and accuracy. Metawave is the only automotive radar company to demonstrate calibrated phased array and front-end solutions. Its solution uses a single conventional frequency modulated continuous wave (FMCW) radar chip developed by Texas Instruments (TI) to enable analog beamforming signals. Metawave has applied for more than 250 patents, 20 of which have been issued and approved.

At the heart of SPEKTRA is Metawave’s MARCONI™ 77GHz multi-channel beamformer chip, which, when used with Metawave’s proprietary calibration system, can control the range of transmit and receive beams in precise steps within the target field of view. MARCONI uses an antenna-in-package (AiP) to control focused, high-gain beams while running advanced Virtual MIMO Array algorithms, giving SPEKTRA radar-based platforms an advantage over traditional digital-only radars. Traditional radars, also known as “radar-on-a-chip,” use wider, lower-gain beams and are fundamentally unable to achieve the same effective isotropic radiated power (EIRP) and range performance as SPEKTRA. Following the latest trend in commercial mmWave products, especially in the wireless cellular market, the AiP module assembles and packages the Marconi chip with the AiP, allowing for higher levels of integration and improved performance with fully calibrated modular building blocks that can be configured in antenna arrays to drive the Virtual MIMO Array algorithm. Furthermore, these building blocks can be used in various geometries and topologies to develop specialized radar modules for multifunctional purposes.

The high-performance radar front end that supports SPEKTRA radar is an innovation in TI's mmWave sensor portfolio. "Automakers can now control long-range radar with greater precision to enable driver assistance features and help improve driving safety, even on busy streets and other challenging road conditions," said Sneha Narnakaje, manager of TI automotive radar sensors. "Combining the fully calibrated MARCONI analog beamformer chip with TI's mmWave radar front end AWR2243 provides higher angular resolution at longer distances. The SPEKTRA radar platform leverages advanced architectures and linear frequency modulation configurations, as well as built-in circuitry for phase coherence of the AWR2243."

In early 2021, Metawave also demonstrated its proprietary artificial intelligence (AI) AWARE™ platform, which enables SPEKTRA radar to perform real-time object classification and tagging for more efficient and faster advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) processing, with tagging accuracy exceeding 94%. Thanks to its machine learning sensor fusion, the AWARE platform enables SPEKTRA radar to provide accuracy in storms, darkness, and dense fog, even when vehicles are traveling on the highway at high speeds. When combined with virtual MIMO array technology on the back end, SPEKTRA radar can focus its beam along a specific field of view (FoV) direction to achieve faster frame rates, thereby enabling detection and classification of objects up to 300 meters away. Traditional radars use four or more transceiver chips for digital beamforming, or to create (“blink”) a wide field of view, limiting range and the radar’s ability to accurately distinguish close objects.

“Metawave has demonstrated its strong capabilities at the core analog silicon level by successfully delivering its first automotive radar multi-channel beamformer chip to MIRISE,” said Tony Cannestra, Director of Corporate Ventures at Denso. “We are excited to continue to support Metawave and other startups working on advanced technologies to make the world of automotive transportation safer and more comfortable.”

Since its demonstration at CES in 2020, car, truck, and even train OEMs have successfully demonstrated the first SPEKTRA radar platform. By enabling these industry leaders to collaborate in the SPEKTRA radar proof-of-concept evaluation program, even during the COVID-19 pandemic, ground mobility leaders are able to test the next generation of radar for highly automated and autonomous driving at a low cost, while having access to Metawave experts and using its state-of-the-art labs. By providing the flexibility to extract raw data from the SPEKTRA radar sensor, customers can run their own algorithms and process the radar data seamlessly in their software stack.

“As a hardware and systems company, the Metawave team has continued to develop its core ICs, antennas, calibration, radar systems and algorithms, embedded software, and AI modules to achieve milestones and protect its intellectual property during the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Maha Achour, CEO and founder of Metawave. “We are excited to be the first to deliver fully calibrated beam steering chips to leaders in the automotive industry, paving the way for global market adoption of Metawave’s proprietary technology.”

SPEKTRA radar helps automakers deliver ADAS and safety features including left turn assist, blind spot monitoring, automatic emergency braking, adaptive cruise control, traffic jam guidance, highway guidance, automatic emergency braking, lane assist and more.