HiPIR

About the project

This 20-month project will result in a High-Performance Imaging Radar product, designed specifically for Highly Automated Vehicles. This addresses a gap in the CAM supply chain currently, and will facilitate more robust, lower cost systems that can operate across a wider range of weather conditions.

Autonomous vehicles use a range of sensors to feed data to the perception system, typically these will include radar, lidar and cameras. Due to their accuracy and high resolution, lidars are heavily relied upon but are fragile and suffer from loss of performance as weather conditions deteriorate. Radar is much more robust and less prone to effects of weather, and is also more cost-effective, but the performance of currently available automotive radar limits usage.

The vision of this project is to develop a high-performance imaging radar that complies with automotive standards that will reduce the reliance on lidar and remove the need for it altogether in some cases. This requires the ultimate in performance from the front-end antennae and analogue design. 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 to facilitate further performance improvements and reduce system cost.

To do this we will utilise the project partners’ design innovations and domain expertise.

• Plextek Services Ltd will provide the expertise in antenna design.
• Cambridge Sensoriis Ltd will provide the expertise in analogue design.
• AptCore Ltd will provide expertise in processor design, signal processing software and will lead the project.
• GarField Microelectronics Ltd will provide expertise in ASIC design which will enable the full potential of the AptCore processor to be realised.

Together the partners will deliver this world leading product, which will be manufactured in the UK, and will benefit the UK and global CAM markets and bring significant benefits to the UK economy.

Project Partners

• AptCore Ltd
• Plextek Services Ltd.
• Cambridge Sensoriis Ltd.
• GarField Microelectronics