What is radar?
Radar is a sensor that transmits pulses of electromagnetic waves and receives reflections of objects and targets. The returning wave patterns indicate the distance, direction, and speed of objects on the ground and/or in the air.
High-performance radar sensors, used for a half-century by the military, are often large and heavy, consume a lot of power, and are incredibly costly. Referred to collectively as C-SWaP (cost, size, weight, and power), these factors have made radar impractical for commercial applications, and have even prevented use on many military platforms where C-SWaP is a constraint. While in the last two decades there have emerged very low-cost radar sensors for automobiles, these have been limited to very short-range (several hundred meters).
Outside the automotive sector, modern radar designers have made significant efforts towards reducing C-SWaP in attempts to unblock commercial markets in security, autonomy, collision avoidance, and situational awareness, but unfortunately those efforts have often come with significant compromises on performance. Echodyne’s portfolio of ultra-low C-SWaP radars is recognized as a “cost-per-performance” breakthrough, bringing the fidelity and accuracy of high-end military radar systems to a C-SWaP that meets both commercial and government needs.
