ACED Fab: 240-GHz Energy-Efficient CMOS MIMO Radar

雷达技术在现代汽车应用中至关重要，可以实现自动巡航控制和半自动驾驶。使用先进的多天线雷达阵列有望提供更多的功能和应用，包括对活人/动物和物体的无摄像头检测，三维定位和手势识别，以增强用户界面。尽管有许多重要的应用，这些雷达系统仍然需要大量的研究来提高其性能，并减少尺寸和能源足迹。虽然汽车应用可以容忍高功耗，但其他应用，如建筑物和家庭中的传感器以及移动手势识别，要求雷达模块更小，消耗更少的功率。为了应对这些挑战，我们提出的研究将探索低成本集成电路技术，用于工作在240 GHz的下一代雷达。成功实现低功耗CMOS 240 GHz雷达将实现高分辨率雷达和成像。下一代通信或“6G”可能受益于100ghz以上频谱的可用性，因此我们的研究将影响宽带连接，从而扩大无线接入，这是国家的关键优先事项。100 GHz以上的操作在生物医学成像、癌症检测、光谱学和安全方面也有潜在的新应用。我们提出的研究将探索低成本的CMOS技术，用于工作在240 GHz的下一代MIMO雷达。在240 GHz工作有很多好处，比60 GHz的波长小3-4倍，e波段（今天的雷达）允许小型化和更高的角度分辨率，以及大型MIMO阵列进行全面成像。与此同时，由于CMOS技术的低功率增益和活动限制，在如此高的频率下工作带来了许多挑战。我们团队的重点是关键的构建模块，特别是240 GHz的接收器、发射器以及频率的产生和分配。此外，我们将解决系统和天线/封装方面的挑战，因为功率、性能和成本对封装非常敏感。集成电路需要一种有效的方式将功率耦合到天线阵列，否则将在转换损耗中失去性能优势。通过处理整个系统，从基带到天线，通过密切合作，我们计划为下一代次太赫兹雷达铺平道路。我们提出的解决方案还必须在下一代应用程序的上下文中进行设计。毫米波雷达的新兴应用，包括手势识别和汽车阵列，需要对附近物体的灵敏度，而目标附近不希望看到的大型物体，如桌子和墙壁，会产生巨大的反射，很容易淹没所需的信号。这意味着下一代雷达系统需要在线性度和相位噪声方面具有更高的性能。对于下一代L4/L5自动驾驶系统也是如此，它们需要更高的分辨率，低于1°，以检测数百米外的行人。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Radar technology is essential in modern automotive applications, enabling automatic cruise control and semi-autonomous driving. Using advanced multiple antenna array of radars has the promise to offer even more functionality and applications, including camera-less detection of living people/animals and objects, three dimensional localization, and gesture recognition to enhance user interfaces. Despite these many important applications, these radar systems still require considerable research to improve their performance, and to reduce the size and energy footprint. While automotive applications can tolerate the high-power consumption, other applications, such as sensors in buildings and homes and mobile gesture recognition require the radar module to be smaller and to consume less power. To address these many challenges, our proposed research will explore low-cost integrated circuit technology for next generation radars operating at 240 GHz. Successful realization of a low power CMOS 240 GHz radar would enable high resolution radar and imaging. Next generation communication or “6G” will likely benefit from the availability of spectrum above 100 GHz, and thus our research would impact broadband connectivity, thus broadening wireless access, which is a key national priority. Operation over 100 GHz also has potential new applications in biomedical imaging, cancer detection, spectroscopy, and security. Our proposed research will explore low-cost CMOS technology for next generation MIMO radars operating at 240 GHz. Operating at 240 GHz has many benefits, 3-4X smaller wavelength than 60 GHz and E-band (today's radars) allows miniaturization and higher angular resolution, and large MIMO arrays for full imaging. At the same time, operating at such high frequencies comes with many challenges due to the lower power gain and activity limits of CMOS technology. Our team’s focus is on key building blocks, in particular the 240 GHz receiver, the transmitter, and the frequency generation and distribution. Additionally, we will address system and antenna/packaging challenges, since power, performance and cost are highly sensitive to packaging. The integrated circuit needs an efficient means to couple power to the antenna array, otherwise the performance benefits will be lost in transition losses. By tackling the entire system, from baseband to antenna, and by working closely, we plan to pave the path for next generation sub-Thz radars. Our proposed solution must also be designed in the context of next generation applications. Emerging applications for mm-wave radar, including gesture recognition and automotive arrays, require sensitivity for nearby objects, and undesired large objects near the target, such as tables and walls, produce large reflections that can easily swamp out the desired signal. This means that next generation radar systems need to have even higher performance in terms of linearity and phase noise. This is also true for next generation autonomous L4/L5 driving systems, which require an order-of-magnitude higher resolution, sub 1° to detect pedestrians from hundreds of meters away.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.