Tiny, fast, accurate technology on the radar

The new device is compact: it fits into a 10-centimeter box, weighs less than 150 grams and is powered by a 5V battery.

2019 KAUST

Radar technology has been used for decades in aviation, defense and speed-camera technology. Now, a team at KAUST, in collaboration with scientists at the VTT Technical Research Center of Finland, have created a compact, low-cost radar with potential applications in healthcare and personal security.

Radar provides detailed information about the size, distance and speed of moving objects. However, for close-range applications, the transmitted radio waves must have short wavelengths to pick up as much detail as possible about their immediate environment. Such sensors could help visually impaired people, and unmanned moving devices, to see by translating radar reflections into useful information.


“Current radar modules are large and bulky. They also lose out on key details because they operate using long radio wavelengths,” says Seifallah Jardak, who worked on the project under the supervision of Sajid Ahmed and Mohamed-Slim Alouini from KAUST and along with Tero Kiuru and Mikko Metso from VTT. “We wanted to develop a low-power, portable radar. Colleagues at VTT brought the necessary experience in millimeter-wave and hardware design, while I focused on the signal processing side and developed modular radar software,” explains Jardak.

Read the full article on KAUST Discovery.