NXP ramps up production of S32R41 radar processors

What’s new

NXP Semiconductors has released the latest member of its scalable S32R radar processor family into production. Tailored to meet the more demanding processing requirements to support L2+ autonomous driving and advanced driver assistance system (ADAS) solutions, the high-performance S32R41 is central to creating high-resolution corner and front-facing long-range radars.

ADAS total solution expert CubTEK will leverage NXP’s S32R41 processors and TEF82xx RFCMOS transceivers for its new high-end radar sensor system. Next-generation commercial vehicles will be able to use this technology in a sophisticated blind spot information system (BSIS) to assist drivers in enhancing road safety for vulnerable road users such as pedestrians and cyclists.

NXP’s scalable radar platform of highly integrated processors and radar one-chip, which offers a high degree of architecture compatibility and software reuse, allows CubTEK to benefit from its prior work on 4D imaging radar with NXP’s S32R45.

Why it matters

Automotive radar is fast becoming the key sensor technology for safety-critical ADAS applications for enhancing road safety. One of the more demanding use cases requiring enhanced radar capability is the BSIS.

Commercial vehicles have large blind spots on all four sides, which can change dynamically when making turns. According to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), these blind spots may extend to up to 20 feet (6m) ahead and 30 feet (9m) behind, and along the sides one lane wide (left) and two lane widths (right).

Turning manoeuvre collisions between large commercial vehicles, such as trucks, and pedestrians or cyclists usually result in severe consequences. In the past, improving the driver’s vision by increasing the number of mirrors and equipping commercial vehicles with side underrun protection raised the safety of vulnerable road users. Since turning accidents still happen, many vehicles now include a BSIS, which provides blind spot detection (BSD), lane change alert (LCA), and turn assist (TA).

More details

The NXP S32R41 radar processor meets the needs of advanced 77GHz radar applications, not only for high-resolution long-range radar applications, but also for advanced corner radar applications for passenger cars as well as commercial vehicles such as CubTEK’s BSIS.

The architecture supports up to functional safety level ASIL D according to ISO 26262 and creates an optimal processing chain with high-performance SPT (Signal Processing Toolbox) and Cadence BBE32 DSP radar processing accelerators.

The high-performance processing capability with dual MIPI CSI2 interfaces and 8MB of local SRAM, enables high angular resolution radar systems. In addition, the hardware security engine (HSE) with EdgeLockTM compliance provides over-the-air (OTA) update capability and is ISO 21434 ready. Using NXP’s S32R41 processor and radar software development kit (RSDK), developers can easily build and optimise high-resolution 77GHz radar sensor applications. “NXP’s S32R41 radar processor is the first device we have seen on the market that provides the necessary processing power and connectivity to meet both the technical and commercial requirements for enhancing safety in commercial vehicles.

CubTEK’s ECE R151 certified system fulfils the BSD, LCA and TA functions, solving the tractor and container angle issues,” said Dennis Tsai, Chief Technology Officer at CubTEK. “We are excited to work with NXP and use the S32R41 processor in our latest radar product.” “The NXP S32R41 processor is tailor-made to deliver outstanding performance at low power to meet the next-generation high-class radar sensor requirements,” said Huanyu Gu, Director Product Marketing ADAS at NXP. “As such, the CubTEK team developed their BSIS with a remarkable field view of 180 degrees and a detection range of over 110 meters. We are very pleased with the broad application of the S32R41 processor beyond the passenger car segment.”