A tiny chip that can save lives
Posted by lavanya bharathy on July 28, 2015
Category Computers & Internet
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I imagine you are inside a speeding car on a high way at night. Several metres away a wild animal or some other obstacle appears out of the blue and you have little time to react.The impending danger can be averted, thanks to an innovation by an MTech graduate from Indian Institute of Science (IISc). Aditya Chowdary, 24, has designed a device that detects obstacles from a distance and alerts the vehicle driver about it.

The technology has the potential to find the relative velocity of a target and the direction of arrival of the reflected signal. "It can be incorporated into high-end auto mobiles to provide collision warning, parking assistance, blind-spot detection and auto-braking. The device can come handy for vehicle users while driving in rain and poor visibility," said Aditya. The innovation has already bagged the first place at the Cadence Design Contest 2015, a national contest conducted by a multi-nation al firm that provides undergraduate and graduate engineering students an opportunity to showcase their talent in electronic design.

How it works

The technology is built on tiny silicon chip that contains a `radar transceiver (a device that can transmit and receive radar signals or radio waves). The set-up consists of two antennas and a silicon chip. The transmitting antenna sends out a signal from the chip. The obstacle reflects the signal and the receiving antenna senses it. The frequency of this received signal is proportionate to the distance from the obstacle. Entries for the contest were judged based on criteria such as inventiveness, complexity, feasibility, breadth of design and clarity of communication.

Type in air

Prof Gaurab Banerjee from the electrical communication engineering department of IISc, under whose guidance Aditya did the project, said the device, a first from academia in India, was designed at 10GHz to study the system integration issues before it can be scaled up to 60GHz. "When up to 60GHz. "When scaled up to higher frequencies, it can recognize hand gestures and can be used as an external interface for operating devices such as mobile phones. This means you can type in air. The chip inside the cellphone will recognize the characters from the gestures," said Gaurab.
 

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