IISc Unveils India's First Natively-Produced Single-Chip Through-Wall Radar

The Indian Institute of Science (IISc) has unveiled a single-chip through-the-wall radar, smaller than a grain of rice and the first such design to come out of the country — a major achievement for the nation's progress towards technological independence.

"TWR [Through-Wall Radar] imaging has always been one of the most challenging radar design problems,” explains Professor Gaurab Banerjee, who led the project at the IISc's Department of Electrical Communication Engineering. The problem: Walls are, typically, somewhat radio-opaque, and the signal from the radar is considerably damped. To get around the problem, TWR imagers use a wide frequency range and a more complex 'chirp' signal than free-air radars - both of which complicate their design, and make it challenging to integrated into a single chip suitable for mass production.

“The same design techniques that have enabled smaller and cheaper smartphones can now be used to miniaturise the complex electronics of a radar system into a small chip," says Banerjee of his team's work. "Only a handful of countries in the world today have the ability to put the entire electronics of a radar on a chip" — and now India can count itself among their number.

The compact CMOS-based chip, smaller than a grain of rice prior to packaging, is designed for applications in defense, healthcare, transportation, and agriculture — anywhere where you may need to see what is beyond a surface using non-destructive imaging. "It might be possible for a centrally-placed TWR system to scan the house, and construct a model of when a person is standing or sitting down," Banerjee explains of one potential application. "If there is a sudden change in gait due to a fall, it can trigger an alarm. It could also monitor breathing and respiration rates and assess the severity of a fall."

The radar chip isn't India's first successful effort to reduce its reliance on non-native technology: Back in October 2018 the SHAKTI Project, which aims to create a native RISC-V processor for the Indian semiconductor market, successfully booted the nation's first high-performance microprocessor to be designed produced entirely within the country's borders.

The TWR project was funded by the Government of India's IMPRINT programme, the Ministry of Human Resource Development, and the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO). More information is available from the IISc press release.