Partners: AptCore Limited (Lead), Garfield Microelectonics Limited, Plextex Services Limited, Cambridge Sensoriis Limited. 

This project will result in a High-Performance Imaging Radar for Highly Automated Vehicles.

This addresses a gap in the CAM Supply Chain UK, and will facilitate higher resolution, more robust, lower cost systems that perform across a wider range of weather conditions.

Autonomous vehicles use a range of sensors to feed data to the perception system – typically radar, lidar and cameras. Lidars, due to their high resolution, are heavily relied upon but are fragile and suffer from loss of performance as weather conditions deteriorate. Ongoing development, over the last few years has not improved this significantly. Radar is more robust and less prone to effects of weather, and also more cost effective, but resolution limits usage.

The vision is to develop a High-Performance Imaging Radar compliant to automotive standards, that reduces reliance on lidar, removing the need for it altogether in some cases. This requires the ultimate in performance from front-end antenna and analogue design which are looked after by Plextek and Cambridge Sensoriis. It also requires a step up in the digital signal processing performance which will require improvements to AptCore’s radar processor design and moving it to a silicon implementation using Garfield’s expertise to facilitate further performance improvements and reduce system cost.

Objectives are therefore to:

• Develop the High-Performance Imaging Radar.
  
• Test and demonstrate the system.
  
• Provide prototype to customer(s).
  
• Promote the system widely to organisations developing Autonomous Systems.
• Ensure the system is designed and manufactured such that the necessary compliance and robustness are achieved at an attractive price.
• Ensure the system and technologies can be sold to other markets in which the partners operate.
  
• Generate £120 million PA in sales of this product within 10 years.
  

Innovations include:

• Radar antenna design and front-end electronics designs: incorporating innovations developed by Plextek and Cambridge Sensoriis.
• Processor architecture: the AptCore ACR 102 is a highly innovative architecture with several patents on features of the design. AptCore intends to add more innovative features as part of the project to further extend the performance.
• Signal processing: the digital signal processing implemented as software running on the ACR102 core is also innovative, to facilitate the performance and efficiency needed.
• Backend software: the backend software uses artificial intelligence to better identify and recognise detected objects.
• Innovative silicon development: Garfield have process innovations to improve design efficiency by greater automation of the design process and ensuring the ASIC produced is right first time.