Created the smallest radar sensor in the world, capable of detecting movements thinner than a hair
Engineers have created a radar sensor the size of a sesame seed that can detect movements 1/100 the width of a human hair, or one four millionth of a meter. The results were published in the I EEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits .
The team at the University of California, Davis (UC Davis) created this prototype sensor that is minimal in size, economical and energy efficient.
The official release describes the sensor's design as turning a "mission impossible" into reality. This advanced design allows the sensor to detect incredibly small movements of objects on a microscopic scale.
The sensor holds promise for a wide range of potential applications, including security, biometric monitoring and assisting the visually impaired.
The Use of a millimeter wave
Millimeter wave is an electromagnetic frequency that ranges from 30 to 300 gigahertz and lies between microwaves and infrared. It is used to power high-speed communications networks such as 5G and is widely sought after for its ability to provide short-range sensing capabilities.
“Millimeter wave radars send fast-moving electromagnetic waves to targets to analyze their movement, position and speed using the bounced waves,” the release explains.
Millimeter waves have several advantages, including natural sensitivity to minute movements and the ability to focus on tiny objects. For this reason it will be very useful in the detections carried out by this microscopic sensor.
The problem of filtering out background noise
Most currently developed millimeter wave sensors face specific problems related to power consumption and filtering of background noise, i.e. the environmental disturbance that results from the reflection of millimeter waves that are reflected from the entire environment surrounding the object to detect.
When the researchers tried to capture the tiny signal from a small sheet of paper, their sensors were overwhelmed by background noise and the signal was lost.
“It really seemed impossible, because the noise levels we were observing must have been so low that almost no signal source could handle them,” Omeed Momeni said in an official statement. In order to overcome this problem it was necessary to almost completely redesign the sensor, to allow it to define the object to be detected with respect to the background.
As a result, the sensor can now detect changes in a target's position that are 1/100 the width of a human hair and identify vibrations that are 1/1,000 the width of a human hair.
This makes it “better than or on par with the most accurate sensors in the world.” This low-cost device has the potential to develop highly advanced millimeter-wave radars in the near future and to enable, for example, a pair of glasses to detect objects in the dark, or to allow blind people to know perfectly the layout of objects. objects in a room.
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The article The smallest radar sensor in the world created, capable of detecting movements thinner than a hair comes from Economic Scenarios .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/realizzato-il-piu-piccolo-sensore-radar-al-mondo-in-grado-di-rilevare-movimenti-piu-sottili-di-un-capello/ on Tue, 31 Oct 2023 10:00:34 +0000.