Palo Alto, CA, Feb. 20, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Metawave, leading innovator in the next frontier of wireless technology disrupting self-driving, fixed wireless, and 5G networks, today announced it is the first to add a Micro Doppler Signature Extraction AI algorithm to its automotive 77 GHz radar platform. The Company’s WARLORD™ smart radar platform is now capable of distinguishing non-metallic objects like pedestrians, cyclists, and road animals like deer, squirrels, or coyotes, by analyzing their micro-motions.
“When thinking about autonomous driving, we want to mimic two human fundamentals: perception and decision-making,” said Metawave CTO and co-founder Dr. Bernard Casse. “Metawave is building a superior radar ‘digital eye’ - possessing high-resolution 3D vision - and we’re also embedding decentralized intelligence, equipping the radar sensor with human-like interpretation of the world in order for the car to make good driving decisions.”
The Micro-Doppler Radar Signature is one of the many AI features responsible for target discrimination, in Metawave’s long-term AI roadmap for the WARLORD radar platform. While Micro-Doppler Signatures are great for recognizing non-metallic objects, which are intrinsically harder for radars, they can still be used for providing additional information about metallic objects like cars, motorcycles or trucks – Doppler signatures associated with the rotations of the wheels can be exploited for enhanced discrimination, even between different classes of vehicles.
“Micro-Doppler Radar has been used in the military for target recognition, and there has been extensive academic studies from through-the-wall radar imaging, to classifying small UAVs to identifying human breathing patterns,” said Metawave CEO and co-founder Dr. Maha Achour. “But, applying it to analog automotive radar at 77 GHz, with no digital beamforming in the back-end, and especially with our unique architecture like the WARLORD, we’re ahead of the game.”
Later this month at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Metawave will be showing SABER™ to telecommunications giants interested in deploying advanced hybrid antennas. SABER™ high-gain antenna with extremely low sidelobes is optimal because of its highly directive beam, which can be focused and steered in real-time over wide angles and with large bandwidths without causing or being susceptible to interference. SABERTM passive and electronically steerable antennas can be deployed at client side, base stations, and communication nodes in point-to-point (including backhaul links), point-to-multipoint (including star configuration), and mesh networks. SABER™ core technology eliminates the need for expensive massive MIMO antennas and power-hungry phase shifters, because it’s phase shifting architecture is realized by proprietary adaptive metamaterials—leveraging leading-edge optimization and control algorithms.
About WARLORD™
(W-band Advanced Radar for Long-range Object Recognition and Detection)
Autonomous cars operation depends on both the maturity of the decision-making algorithms and performance of its critical sensors – camera, lidar, radar. The only sensor that can operate at full speed and in all-weather conditions is a radar sensor. Radar can detect, track, and image objects at long ranges, and it can process received signals an order of magnitude faster than today’s digital-only radar. Metawave is building a new breed of high-resolution, imaging radars, capable of reconstructing its environment and interpreting the world around it like humans. Metawave’s radar platform uses engineered metamaterial structures capable of beamforming and beamsteering, and powered by an Artificial Intelligence (AI) engine that detects, recognizes, tracks, and classifies objects.
About Metawave
Metawave is a wireless technology company that will revolutionize the future of wireless communications and radar sensing. Leveraging adaptive metamaterials and Artificial Intelligence, Metawave’s primary focus is to build intelligent beamsteering radars for autonomous driving. Changing the way automakers think about radar, Metawave is building high-performance radars capable of 3D imaging and vehicle-to-vehicle communication, making cars safer, smarter, and more connected. In parallel, Metawave is developing smart beamsteering antennas for 4G and 5G networks to provide faster networks and near-instant connectivity for billions of users. Metawave’s current flagship beamsteering technology platform was developed at PARC, a Xerox company. Founded in 2017, Metawave is located in the heart of Silicon Valley. Please visit the Metawave website at www.metawave.co, follow us on Twitter @metawavecorp, on Facebook, or contact us at info@metawave.co.
A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/8e3db767-9301-4fb3-bb3e-8353ba611a08