When you can package a radar system in a 10- × 10-mm chip, you end up with a new type of sensor that was unimagined a few years ago. Today, it’s becoming common practice to use a radar chip for some creative sensing applications.
The industrial and automotive markets have a tremendous need for innovative sensing capabilities to assist vehicles, factories, buildings, and cities to better sense the world around them and help them make more intelligent decisions. Millimeter-wave (mmWave) radar-sensor implementations are increasing as well as expanding. Some interesting new examples include keeping track of the elderly, automotive in-cabin monitoring, and robotics safety. This article looks at how Texas Instruments’ 60-GHz radars are expanding the industrial and automotive sensor markets.