MMW sensors for Industrial, safety, Traffic and security applications

Transcription

1 MMW sensors for Industrial, safety, Traffic and security applications Philip Avery Director, Navtech Radar Ltd.

2 Overview Introduction to Navtech Radar and what we do. A brief explanation of how FMCW radars work Some typical applications and why MMW FMCW radar is suitable

3 Navtech Radar Company founded in 1999 with the sole purpose of developing, manufacturing and supporting cost effective industrial radar sensors and systems Based in Oxfordshire, UK. 22 employees 80% engineers. Core skills:- Electronic design Embedded software and firmware Radar data processing software systems Radar application engineering Mechanical design Work closely with partner companies for both design and manufacture

4 What Navtech Radar do? Manufacture a range of standard 77GHz FMCW radar products Industrial sensors Security/surveillance sensors and Software Develop sensors and systems for customer applications including:- Complete sensor design Mechanical * Signal processing RF systems* Antenna systems* Post processing systems E.g. Target tracking, detection, zoning etc. Interface to 3 rd party systems * - developed with partners

5 What is a MMW FMCW radar? MMW Millimeter Wave - usually defined as > 30GHz. FMCW Frequency Modulated Continuous Wave In most cases a linear frequency sweep is used. Benefits:- Low transmitted power High range resolution No minimum range Small size due to high TX frequency

6 How does it work? As with all radars the primary information required is range to the target. This is calculated by measuring the time required for the transmit signal to reach the target and return to the receiver. With FMCW radars the frequency of the output (IF) indicates the range and the amplitude indicates the size of the reflection.

7 Typical data output Single azimuth spectral plot plot or raw radar data from the radar (100Mbit Ethernet )

8 Raw radar data Example of raw radar data polar plot This is a very cluttered environment Typically data is not that clean compared to some sensors e.g. laser

9 What s s inside a typical system?

10 Characteristics of Typical applications All weather outdoor sensing Harsh operating environment Propagation dust, fog, rain, ice etc. For the sensor temperature, vibration, water, impact High reliability mission critical, safety applications High integrity i.e. high probability of detection. Relatively short range m High resolution sensing Narrow beam width Small range resolution Size, weight, power constraints

11 Vehicle automation straddle carriers Primary navigation sensor to determine location of vehicle Range accuracy over temperature and time - +/- 200m. (+/- 66pS) Dynamic range very cluttered environment High reliability, rugged design. Range, bearing and power are measured

12 Vehicle & Equipment Automation (2) Collision avoidance for automated haul trucks Very harsh environment vibration, temperature, impact from rocks etc. Radome design Performance through dust Sensitivity DARPA Grand Challenge

13 Distributed Surface Movement Radar East Midlands Airport UK Replacement for single X- Band radar system 4 systems cover the whole airport with no blind spots Distributed system of sensors give graceful degradation and ease of repair and service no single point of failure Due to the performance of the radars this application does not present any great challenges for this type of radar. Reliable all weather operation is important

14 Crane safety system Emergency stop system to prevent the crane from hitting the ship High resolution Sensitivity - Detection of thin objects e.g. Wires and antennas Reliability & integrity Maintenance free Lasers fail due to inability to detect small ( thin) objects and work in strong sunlight

15 Safety sensor for coal loading gantry Prevents coal chute from colliding with ship Very dusty environment High update rate required (10 Hz) High resolution (25cm) 3D data Long service life

16 Helicopter landing aid during brown out Often during the most critical part of the landing phase the pilot becomes blind due to a dust cloud created by the downdraft.

17 Scanning MMW radar - E-Bumper Developed with EADS Compact, lightweight Mechanically robust Operation during high vibration Sensitivity High update rate Custom Beam pattern Low power consumption

18 Highway Usage Monitoring Lane by Lane monitoring of vehicle speed, stopped vehicles, queuing vehicles etc. High resolution lane definition Dynamic range Operation during vibration Coverage custom beam pattern

19 Highways Incident Detection Safety and management of highways - Sweden Sensitivity Coverage beam pattern Cold temperature operation Performance in snow Radar#2 Stopped Car Stopped vehicle detection in falling snow Nov 9 th 2010

20 Highways Incident Detection Safety and management of highways - Sweden Sensitivity Coverage beam shape Cold temperature operation Performance in snow Slowing down - Brake lights still visible with camera

21 Highways Incident Detection Safety and management of highways - Sweden Sensitivity Coverage beam shape Cold temperature operation Performance in snow Vehicle stopped not visible

22 Highways Incident Detection Safety and management of highways - Sweden Sensitivity Coverage beam shape Cold temperature operation Performance in snow View from same camera no snow

23 Surveillance Radar Automatic Surveillance system detects & tracks intruders High resolution High sensitivity Good clutter rejection

24 Security Site System Camera Tracker

25 Summary MMW radars can be used successfully in a variety of industrial sensing applications Radars have a significant advantage over other technologies in harsh outdoor environments High frequency FMCW radars can deliver the performance (beam width, range resolution and sensitivity) required for industrial applications in a robust, compact and easy to use package. Commercial of the shelf (COTS) radar solution at an affordable price are likely to become more common in the future

26 ? Questions