NXP's high-end radar software development kit enhances automotive radar sensor capabilities

NXP Premium Radar SDK suppresses interference, optimizes MIMO waveforms, and enhances radar sensor resolution

Shanghai, China – April 14, 2022 – NXP Semiconductors NV (NXP) has launched the first version of a powerful set of radar signal processing algorithms as part of its new Premium Radar SDK (PRSDK) . It helps developers improve radar system performance and leverage the tight coupling of NXP’s advanced software algorithms with its new S32R4x radar processor family to improve safety and differentiation. This proprietary radar algorithm library allows proven algorithms to be quickly integrated into radar sensor applications, helping to accelerate radar sensor development and reduce R&D investments . The initial evaluation version is expected to be released in 2022 and includes 3 algorithm software packages with solutions for interference suppression, MIMO waveform optimization, and angular resolution enhancement.

Product Importance

Radar use cases such as automatic emergency braking and adaptive cruise control are becoming standard in cars delivered today. Local laws and regulations are becoming more and more stringent for blind spot detection, turn assistance, front and rear cross traffic and personnel detection. Each car must be equipped with more radar nodes to form a 360-degree safety barrier. In addition, the demand for a safer and more comfortable driving experience is also growing, which has accelerated the transition to the L2+ level and provided comfort features close to L3 autonomous driving. This in turn requires higher-performance radar sensors to expand coverage of extreme situations and provide accurate environmental mapping and positioning.

“We expect the triple acceleration potential of automotive radar to continue over the next decade, with more cars equipped with radar sensors, an increase in the number of sensor nodes per car, and higher performance sensors deployed,” said Huanyu Gu, director of ADAS product marketing and business development at NXP. “This megatrend creates a number of challenges for automotive OEMs and Tier 1 suppliers. Specifically, this requires implementing interference mitigation, MIMO waveform optimization, and sensor resolution enhancement. The advanced algorithms in NXP’s Premium Radar SDK are designed to address all of these challenges, enabling customers to optimize the use of the S32R4x radar processor hardware.”

In about five years, cars will be equipped with twice as many radar sensors as today, and more than 90% of them will operate in the same 77-79 GHz frequency band. Concerns about mutual interference between radars are growing, and mitigation measures have become a top priority. At the same time, automakers are looking for ways to effectively improve sensor performance. Therefore, carefully optimized MIMO waveforms are essential, which can improve the resolution and coverage of radar sensors. These special modulation schemes allow more transmitters to operate simultaneously, and by encoding the signals of each transmitting antenna, they can be distinguished at the receiving end. In addition, to support more accurate target differentiation and classification in use cases such as vulnerable road user detection or parking assistance functions, higher resolution sensors are needed for both corner radar and forward radar applications.

More details

Premium Radar SDK is a new software product that is derived from NXP's long history of radar innovation. The product is planned to continue to evolve over time, with regular updates to expand the algorithm list to meet emerging radar requirements and NXP's future radar roadmap. The PRSDK implementation complies with the international automotive industry quality management standard IATF 16949:2016 and ASPICE L3 requirements . The product supports user customization to meet the needs of personalized adjustment and differentiation.

Evaluation Options

Under the evaluation license agreement, NXP provides two evaluation options for OEMs and Tier 1 suppliers. The MATLAB-based version provides algorithms in the form of compiled code, and developers can understand the specific functions of PRSDK by injecting custom test vectors and viewing the visual output vector results after calculation. The MCU-based evaluation option provides bit-level accuracy, contains algorithm binaries running on the NXP target radar processor evaluation board, and demonstrates the real-time performance of PRSDK.