As cost reduction becomes the focus of smart driving solutions, where will the millimeter-wave radar industry go?

As early as 2019, Muniu Technology, the world's leader in millimeter wave radar, took the lead in front-loading 4D radar to Bobcat, a global leading mechanical vehicle manufacturer, and obtained Bobcat's strategic investment in its American subsidiary Ainstein. Muniu Technology has since opened up the commercialization of the global smart driving market and started the journey of domestic radars replacing major international manufacturers. In February of this year, Muniu Technology once again announced the completion of several hundred million yuan in Series C financing, and received pre-installed models from many leading car companies.

The 4D imaging radar track is ushering in a strong trend, but the technical threshold for this area is very high and cannot be achieved in a short period of time. It requires years of development experience to deploy complex RF arrangements and stacks, high-speed vehicle-grade digital signal links, multi-chip integrated arrangement stacks, antenna layout and optimization, RF noise reduction processing technology, anti-interference design, and large computing Amount of parallel software design, etc.

The requirements for mass production of 4D imaging radar are miniaturization, lightweight, and low cost. This also requires reliable mechanical structure and flexible hardware design. It also needs to ensure vertical angular resolution, long and short range dual-area mode detection, and complex and comprehensive Software algorithm design.

For radar manufacturers, opportunities often coexist with challenges, and competition has now entered a "white-hot" stage.

The focus of competition comes from the following aspects:

1. Selection of technical solutions: In terms of complete machine/solution suppliers, traditional Tier1 currently generally adopts cascade technology and are at the forefront of mass production of 4D products, such as Bosch, Continental, Hella, etc.; new entrants can rely on Dedicated chipsets and virtual aperture solutions enable lane-changing and overtaking. For example, Arbe’s product channel count is highly competitive.

Although the integrated chip solution can reduce radar power consumption by integrating multiple transmitting and receiving antennas into one chip, the reason why the multi-cascade solution is widely used in the industry is that it is based on mature standard radar chips. Time to market is fast and safety is better guaranteed.

2. The ability to match cost-effective solutions: The differentiation of millimeter wave radar is not just in hardware, but actually lies in the long-term accumulation and mature iteration of its entire system of analog and digital algorithms. The intelligent driving system completes the perception of the surrounding environment through a combination of sensors, and realizes planning and control decisions through the fusion of multi-sensor data. Therefore, the intelligent driving system should use multiple sensors to combine to achieve different solution combinations. To put it simply, "there is always one that suits you."

Taking Muniu Technology as an example, Muniu can provide two sets of 5R solutions for ADAS systems above L2. The cost-effective version is forward radar x1 + angular radar x4; while the high-end performance version is 4D imaging radar x1 + angular radar x4. No matter which solution is used, it has achieved the best performance in the industry and can provide signal output at the point cloud level, target level, and function level, helping customers and OEMs quickly implement it and obtain better perceived quality.

Image source: Muniu Technology

3. A deeper understanding of the industry chain: For 4D imaging radar manufacturers, now that "PK" has reached the mass production stage, OEMs will also pay more attention to the manufacturers' professionalism and resource investment. Millimeter-wave radar must comply with relevant vehicle regulations and verification standards in terms of detection accuracy, frequency, transmission power, etc. for use in vehicles. Automotive-grade chips have higher requirements in the design, development, production and testing stages, and the development cycle is longer, which requires radar manufacturers to have a close cooperative relationship with upstream chip manufacturers. Millimeter wave radar, this competition that deeply integrates technology, capital, market and global vision has quietly begun.

Xuanyuan Capital believes that local manufacturers in the field of automotive millimeter wave radar not only have opportunities for import substitution, but also have opportunities for overtaking in the new technical route of 4D imaging millimeter wave radar, and are expected to win overseas markets. Companies with technical strength, market insight, supply chain management capabilities, and internationalization will ultimately win.

references:

Towards ADAS to Imaging radar for automotive market and technology trends-YELO。 

4D millimeter wave radar: a new path to popularize smart driving. Source: Huatai Securities.

Research on new trends in automotive millimeter wave radar and chips. Source: Guotai Junan Securities Research.