Award-winning mmWave sensors for smart industry and auto

Mouser now stocks ultra-wideband millimetre wave (mmWave) sensors from Texas Instruments. The devices support frequencies from 76GHz to 81GHz and deliver three times more precise sensing and tinier footprint at a fraction of the power of other sensor technologies. The sensors are self-contained, single-chip solutions based on FMCW radar technology. The industrial IWR1642 and automotive AWR1642 sensors combine entire mmWave blocks and analog baseband signal chain for two transmitters and four receivers, an ADC, programmable Arm Cortex-R4F microcontroller, and a hardware accelerator, as well as a high-performance DSP for radar signal processing. The automotive-qualified AWR1642 sensors analyse and respond to a vehicle’s nearby environment, producing improved safety and usability. The device allows multimode radar for processing complex urban environments and short-range radar for recognising automobiles, motorcycles and other dynamic objects up to 80m away with high accuracy. The industrial-focused IWR1642 sensors are perfect for building automation, gesture recognition, traffic monitoring, and more. The sensors are created to accurately identify the angle, range and velocity of objects, even in unfavourable conditions such as fog, rain, smoke and ambient light. The devices also support radar for transport, with the capability to identify moving vehicles at a distance of 60m with incoming velocities of up to 100kph.