PCBWay progresses in automotive millimetre-wave radar research

As a result, this technology has long been a hot topic in both academic research and engineering applications.

In the application of millimetre-wave radar, the surface scattering of detected objects increases, leading to radar images with high contrast, obvious scattering characteristics, and low speckle noise. This is crucial for target recognition and small object detection. Due to the smaller working wavelength in the millimetre-wave band, detection devices based on this technology are easier to miniaturise and offer higher resolution, making it applicable in fields such as small UAV-based Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR). Additionally, in near-field imaging, the millimetre-wave band can more easily penetrate objects, and compared to X-rays (8–12GHz), it poses less harm to the human body, offering broad application prospects in medical diagnostics and public safety. More importantly, millimetre-wave technology has an extremely wide operating frequency band, providing limitless possibilities for the development of 5G and future communication technologies, as well as exploring wireless applications such as autonomous driving and automotive radar.

As the operating frequency increases into the millimetre-wave band, selecting high-Q waveguide structures helps reduce insertion loss in the feeding network, thus improving the radiation efficiency of array antennas. The Gap Waveguide (GWG), a type of waveguide structure suitable for the millimetre-wave band, was proposed by Per-Simon Kidal at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden in 2009. In GWG, the electromagnetic field propagates between the soft and hard surfaces in the air gap, so the dielectric loss can be neglected.

In light of the above, over the past decade, PCBWay has made a series of research achievements on this new and efficient waveguide structure, mainly focusing on the following areas:

• Millimetre-wave array antennas based on GWG
• Millimetre-wave circuits based on GWG
• Packaging technology based on GWG

The key features of these research achievements are as follows:

• High radiation efficiency
• Multi-layer stacked structures that are easy to implement in engineering applications
• No need for good electrical connections, reducing manufacturing costs for mass production
• Versatile processing forms that can meet various application scenarios
• Customisable to meet the needs of different countries and platforms

Based on these research outcomes, we are applying them in civilian fields such as 5G communication, millimetre-wave communication systems, and automotive radar. If you are interested, please contact anson@pcbway.com. We welcome discussions and potential collaborations in this area.