Why can the millimeter wave radar module become the hot spot of smart home? The traditional radar is large in volume and high in power consumption. It measures the target far away from the radar, such as calculating the distance of an aircraft several kilometers or even hundreds of kilometers. With the advancement of semiconductor technology and the rise of autonomous driving, the size of millimeter-wave radar is gradually decreasing. With the boom in consumer goods, the size of millimeter-wave radar chips has fallen to a few millimeters.
As we all know, the sensor industry has always been the subdivision industry of smart home. The millimeter wave radar module is a new component of the sensor subsystem. Why to in-depth discussion of millimeter wave radar, mainly independent millimeter wave radar sensor and built-in millimeter wave radar products. Spring 2022, in particular, saw Huawei add standalone millimeter-wave radar sensors to the house-wide smart product matrix, making people think this is a very mature product category.
In fact, millimeter wave radar is not a new technology. However, for the whole residential intelligent industry, it is indeed a relatively novel technology application from the perspective of the innovative supporting development of upstream chips and the practical application of terminal products. In the future, it will also be the application of technology that every smart home enterprise, especially the whole residential smart enterprise must master.
As we all know, the body presence sensor millimeter wave radar module has been applied to intelligent driving, security, UAV, medical, industrial control, lighting and other mature industries. From the perspective of industrial development, the application of millimeter wave radar technology in the entire field of residential intelligence, from the general application of automobiles to home applications, is just beginning. Mainly due to the continuous development of new low power consumption and small sensors, radar is being used in many consumer smart hardware. Human presence sensor millimeter wave radar module is actually a necessary technology application for smart home to achieve full scene intelligence, mainly due to the demand of consumers and industry chain for higher precision judgment, to achieve better and more stable scene and product experience.
Millimeter-wave radar transmits millimeter-wave (frequency-modulated continuous wave) outward through microstrip array antenna, receives the reflected signal of the target, and collects one round or multiple round. Millimeter wave refers to the operating frequency of 30~100 GHz, the wavelength range between 1 ~ 10mm electromagnetic wave and microwave and far infrared wave overlap, so that millimeter wave has the characteristics of these two spectrum. Airborne round-trip time of electromagnetic wave, nanosecond and picosecond. The civil main band is 24GHz, 60GHz, 77GHz, 79GHz. 77GHz and 79GHz are mainly used for automobile anti-collision radar with detection range greater than 160m and can work all day. Currently, the family domain is mainly used in five family domains. 5.8GHz, 24GHz and 60GHz, 24GHz and 60GHz are the most widely promoted smart headline statistics in the market.
The millimeter wave radar module mainly obtains the distance, speed and Angle of the target object by sending electromagnetic wave to the target object and receiving the echo. Waves are the speed of light, so measurements are fed back very quickly. Millimeter wave radar measures a large number of data such as speed, direction of movement, distance, Angle, target, behavior posture, quantity and micro motion, and has excellent anti-interference ability. In the field of smart home, European and American smart home mainly uses radar for space interaction and health detection, rather than sensor lighting linkage and air conditioning linkage.
In 2021, Google launched NestHub second generation. The radar sensor is installed in the front upper right corner, which can comprehensively analyze sleep quality, monitor breathing status, and intelligent identify cough and snoring according to the movement of limbs and body as well as the ups and downs of the body when breathing.
At the beginning of 2022, Google and CTA (Consumer Technology Association of the United States) released the open radar standard protocol Ripple, namely ProjectSoli radar technology and customized Da technology. Soli Google hopes to open support for radar technology in the hardware and software of the device. Soli chip size is reduced to 8x10mm, and radar, beamforming antenna package into a set of highly integrated application technology solutions, application scenarios have also been shown.
Amazon is developing a 60GHz band radar device for sleep monitoring that recognizes not only sleeping posture but also gestures, which could be built into a smart speaker. In December, Amazon also launched its VayyarCare and AlexaTogether parent subscriptions.
At present, the commonly used whole-room sensing of human motion triggers in existing technologies often adopt video surveillance or infrared sensing. Video surveillance involves the privacy of personnel and is easy to cause the conflict of the monitored party, while infrared human body sensing can only be used to judge whether the personnel is in the state, and it is difficult to obtain the accurate location information of personnel. Independent body presence sensor millimeter wave radar module, mainly used for detection and identification of existence, can understand the real existence of people, position and direction, fall detection, tracking, and linkage with lighting equipment, environmental equipment and household appliances. Millimeter wave radar sensors are adjustable for Angle, transmission frequency and interference, and are available in multiple protocol versions. Of course, for more stability, some terminal brands use millimeter wave radar + infrared dual application to ensure the accurate triggering of the scene.
Not only independent sensors, even built-in sensors have replaced infrared sensors, the existence of sensors in the human body millimeter wave radar module has become a hotspot of intelligent hardware, Such as smart speaker, smart air conditioner, smart watch, lighting, automatic door, camera, toilet, faucet, bed, lock, doorbell, health detection, air conditioner, fan, sweeper, sleep, panel, central control screen and other smart home devices, as a typical scene of radar sensor built-in or linkage application.
Smart Speaker: Built-in gesture control and health monitoring.
Smart Panel: Radar technology with built-in gesture control.
Health monitoring: non-contact breathing, heart rate and blood pressure monitoring, 24 hours non-invasive non-inductive detection.
Smart Bed: Vital signs measurement and multidimensional sleep monitoring.
Sweeper: room map drawing, path navigation.
Doorbell/lock: sensing human approach.
Smartwatch: When the hand is near the watch, the radar will recognize and activate the light screen; The watch's software interface also switches between gestures.
Intelligent air conditioning: Follow the movement of people, judge the air outlet and temperature.
Smart toilet: induction automatic heating, automatic flushing.
Fan: People near soft out of the wind, people far stronger out of the wind.