mmWave radar has been well known in automotive applications to
improve driving safety. These radar sensors can also enable various industrial
applications including homes, healthcare, factories, electronics and robotics. Radar
sensors can make systems safer, more secure, easier and energy efficient. Comparing
to other sensor modalities, such as camera, PIR and ultrasonics, radar has the
following advantages:
- Compared to cameras, radar
does not render images thereby protecting private information. Hence, users
can safely install radar sensors at any place in a home for presence and
motion detection for security surveillance applications. In addition, radar
can work in any light conditions, day or night, foggy or rain.
- Comparing to PIR sensor,
radar can sense micro-meter level of motion information and detect a person
who is completely still from a few centimeters to 20 m and can nicely
complement video doorbells an indoor presence detection.
- Compared to ultrasound, radar
can provide aesthetic advantage during installation since radar can see
through most non-metallic covers. In addition, radar can detect objects
within a few centimeters which can be a big challenge for ultrasound
sensors.
- Besides, radar provides very
rich velocity information, not only instantaneous velocity in meter per
second, but also very fine velocity called “microDoppler” information. This
rich velocity information carries features that can be used to classify
different type of objects (such as humans vs pets).