With the rapid evolution of intelligent driving, mmWave radar sensors have become indispensable to automobile active safety systems, owing to their stable and powerful sensing capabilities. Thus such sensors have to meet increasingly demanding requirements on their road detection performances. Automotive forward-looking radar sensors are used to achieve adaptive cruise control (ACC), forward collision warning (FCW), and other automotive active safety features, whose output can impact the control of braking, acceleration, deceleration, and other functions. So, it is necessary for forward-looking radar to "see" farther with higher accuracy than corner radar, fulfilling more stringent requirements on leakage rate, false alarm rate, reaction speed, etc. Therefore, it is more difficult for Chinese enterprises to develop internationally competitive products of forward-looking radar modules and chips.

In response to the high demands for forward-looking radar applications, based on Alps-Pro mmWave radar SoC, Calterah unveiled a new forward-looking radar solution with excellent detection performances, which can fulfill the requirements of L2/L2+ ADAS systems. Alps-Pro forward-looking radar solution supports long-range-radar (LRR) and medium-range-radar (MRR) modes, providing more powerful range detection, more accurate real-time velocity measurement, high-accuracy 2D angle measurement with larger FOV, more stable angle separation with higher resolution, as well as more precise depiction of objects.

Highlights of Alps-Pro Forward-Looking Radar Solution

• Longer Detection Range: Under the LRR mode, radar enabled by one Alps-Pro SoC can detect objects within the maximum range of up to 240 m with high range resolution (0.5 m) and accuracy (±0.1 m) with only around 2 W single-chip power consumption.

• More Accurate Real-Time Velocity Measurement:The Alps-Pro forward-looking radar solution supports accurate velocity measurement within the range of -85 m/s –85 m/s with high velocity resolution (0.12 m/s under the MRR mode and 0.15 m/s under the LRR mode) and velocity accuracy (±0.03 m/s).

• Angle Measurement in Large FOV with High Accuracy:The Alps-Pro forward-looking radar solution achieves higher 2D angle measurement accuracy within a large FOV (azimuth: -60°–60°, elevation: -10°–10°). The azimuth accuracy reaches ±0.1° (@ ±10° FOV), and the elevation accuracy reaches ±0.5° (@ ±10° FOV).

• More Stable Angle Resolution with Higher Accuracy:With a high azimuth resolution (2.8°), the Alps-Pro forward-looking radar solution also boasts more stable angle resolution performance.

• More Accurate Depiction of Objects:The Alps-Pro forward-looking radar solution outputs dense point cloud data for depicting target vehicles with high accuracy.

The Alps-Pro forward-looking radar solution is developed based on the 77/79 GHz 4T4R Alps-Pro mmWave radar SoC, with industry-leading performances in many aspects. Benefiting from the advantages of Alps-Pro SoCs, such as a complete DDM-MIMO signal processing flow with faster operation speed, lower signal leakage, improved data throughput, and a high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) owing to the coherent combination CFAR algorithm, this forward-looking radar solution boasts stronger detection performance. Thanks to the high integration level, low power consumption, safety and reliability, and the easy-to-use feature of Alps-Pro mmWave SoC, this cost-efficient radar solution can contribute to continuously reducing costs of mmWave radar modules, facilitating the wider application of active safety systems.

Based on the Alps-Pro SoC, Calterah has developed complete high-performance corner radar and forward-looking radar solutions to help customers reduce R&D investment and shorten the time to market of radar products. To meet the demand for interior radar applications, Calterah will also unveil an in-cabin radar solution based on its 60 GHz Rhine-Pro SoC. Going forward, Calterah will continue to leverage more advanced mmWave radar technologies to empower automotive active safety systems, enabling safer and more reliable intelligent mobility.