From August 25 to 27, 2023, the 7th China (Guangzhou) International Elderly Health Industry Expo (EldExpo) was convened at the China Import and Expo Fair Complex in Guangzhou, in a bid to advance the high-quality development of the elderly care industry. During the EldExpo Intelligent Elderly Care Forum, Calterah demonstrated the advantages and excellent functions of its mmWave radar solutions tailored for home-based elderly care applications.

Since China’s transition into an aging society in 1999, China’s old-age population has been scaling up at such a high speed that it is estimated that by the end of 2025 this figure will hit 300 million. On top of all other causes, falls have become the leading cause of deaths relating to injuries of elderly people. Against this backdrop, fall detection and real-time fall alerts become profoundly vital in order to minimize the secondary injuries from falls and to shorten the response time for medical treatment.

 “Up to now, the mmWave radar technology stands as the premier choice in the realm of indoor fall detection,” stated Xiang Wu, Calterah’s Industrial Product Line Director, during the forum. In the applications of indoor fall detection, mmWave radar is superior to traditional camera sensors and wearable detection devices in the following aspects:

• Privacy-friendly: Better privacy protection makes installation feasible in private spaces such as bathrooms and bedrooms.
• Comfortable: Unnoticeable and contactless detection provides a highly-comfortable experience.
• Multi-functional: A comprehensive and fine range of functions cover vital sign detection, human track monitoring, posture detection, etc.
• Precise: Enhanced precision in detection and real-time alert function

Wu also unveiled the latest solution advancements of Calterah’s Rhine family of mmWave radar SoCs, which boast a unique signal processing flow tailored for elderly care scenarios. In the demos he showed, the radar sensor device based on a Rhine SoC could output clear, dense, and highly-distinctive point cloud data of movements and micro motions in various scenarios.

Hence, free from heavy investment in the R&D of mmWave RF, antenna, and radar signal processing, partners using Calterah’s mmWave radar chips can focus on the upper-layer algorithms for applications, thereby realizing high-performance and cost-efficient fall detection radar products for elderly care.

Calterah’s 2nd-gen 60 GHz Rhine SoCs, applied in mmWave indoor sensing systems, are adept at fulfilling the requirements that elderly care applications have for mmWave radar in performance, cost-effectiveness, and other aspects.

• The power-efficient 4T4R SoCs of the Rhine family include a standard version and an AiP (Antenna-in-Package) one, both of which boast competitive analog performance and integrate Calterah’s proprietary baseband accelerator for signal processing.
• Rhine AiP SoCs integrate antenna arrays inside the chip packages, which has eliminated the use of high-frequency PCB laminates and shortened the development cycles of radar modules, so the sensors are compact in size, cost-effective, and easy to use. Meanwhile, the simplified peripheral design of the chips also facilitates further development and shortens the time to market.

As home-based intelligent elderly care advances, mmWave radar has emerged as a preferred choice for an expanding array of relevant applications, owing to its advantages in technological advancements, privacy protection, and other aspects that can address the challenges confronting the home-based elderly care industry. Calterah, as a global leader in designing and developing mmWave radar chips, is living its mission to “Make Millimeter-Wave Serve Everyone” by making its contribution to delivering more convenient, efficient, safe, and pleasant eldercare services through more precise sensing of its SoCs, helping the elderly live their golden years happily with their health safeguarded.