McKelvey Engineering researchers to develop low-power, high-performance radar systems
Aravind Nagulu and Shantanu Chakrabartty were awarded $1.9 million to develop innovative radar technology
Radar technology is essential to detecting and tracking objects with applications ranging from navigation and safety of autonomous vehicles to environmental monitoring and security systems. Researchers in the McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis received a three-year, $1.9 million award from the National Science Foundation to develop advanced radar technology to support these and other applications. The project is part of the NSF’s Future of Semiconductors initiative.
Aravind Nagulu, assistant professor, and Shantanu Chakrabartty, the Clifford W. Murphy Professor, both in the Preston M. Green Department of Electrical & Systems Engineering at WashU, will work with co-investigator Arun Natarajan, professor of electrical engineering and computer science at Oregon State University, on the project. The team aims to develop a new radar system that dramatically reduces power consumption and computing time compared with conventional radar systems. They also plan to prototype a low-power, high-performance radar system-on-chip to demonstrate the cost-effectiveness and scalability of their approach.
“This project has the potential to transform the landscape of radar technology through co-developing advanced radio frequency architectures and analog computing algorithms,” said Chakrabartty, who is also the vice dean for research in McKelvey Engineering. “By exploiting device physics directly for computing and by blurring the boundary between analog and digital signal processing, we have the potential to realize unprecedented energy-efficiencies and throughput.”
The implications of these advancements are vast, Chakrabartty and Nagulu say, promising enhanced detection ranges and target discrimination for applications in autonomous vehicles, drone navigation, aviation, security systems, and health and environmental monitoring. As the proposed system reduces power consumption, it also fosters environmental sustainability, allowing for deployment in portable devices and resource-limited environments.
