Texas Instruments low-power 60GHz millimeter wave radar sensor

Texas Instruments has released low-power 60GHz millimeter wave radar sensors IWRL6432 and AWRL6432. Radar-based sensor integrated circuit (IC) has become a common sensing technology because of its long range detection ability, high motion sensitivity and privacy protection. Due to its high accuracy, radar sensors are widely used in the automotive and industrial markets, such as blind spot detection, collision detection, personnel presence and motion detection applications.

In recent years, 60GHz and 77GHz radar sensors have replaced 24GHz radar sensors, with higher resolution, higher accuracy and smaller contour size. The 60GHz and 77GHz radar bands also support a variety of new applications, such as detection of the presence of children in vehicles and detection of falls in the elderly in hospitals.

Texas Instruments claims that new radar sensors such as IWRL6432 and AWRL6432 have lower power consumption due to their low-power architecture, which can support the use of radar in industrial, personal electronics, and automotive applications. The low-power radar has a built-in sleep mode and provides efficient operating duty cycle, allowing the sensing system to detect motion and intelligently decide when to take action. Its power budget is within 5mW. These characteristics can enable high-performance radar sensing applications for battery powered applications and applications with limited line power.

New radar sensors such as IWRL6432 and AWRL6432 support deep sleep mode and average power consumption of only 2mW to 5mW at low duty ratios. Examples of supported applications include:

● Motion and presence detection for safe home and office environments.
● Intelligent thermostat and HVAC system, through the detection of personnel occupancy to achieve automatic temperature control.
● Lawnmowers, vacuum cleaners and service robots can sense small objects even in the dark and provide users with more comfort through greater efficiency.