Ancortek Inc. has developed a 24 GHz, lightweight, short-range, software-defined radar (SDR) that fits in a coat pocket. Without modifying any hardware, the software-defined architecture of the SDR 2400AD2 enables operating modes, waveforms, bandwidth and processing functions to be changed to adapt to different scenarios and applications. With dual receiving channels, the radar provides multiple modes: direction of arrival (DOA), dual receive antenna (DRA), clutter cancellation by displaced phase center antenna (DPCA) and radar interferometry. The SDR 2400AD2 can be used for indoor activity monitoring, gesture sensing, 3D interferometric synthetic-aperture radar (InSAR) and interferometric inverse synthetic-aperture radar (InISAR) imaging.
The RF module in the SDR is a high performance coherent transmitter and receiver. Using an Infineon SiGe MMIC, the radar transmits FMCW, FSK or CW waveforms in the 24 to 26 GHz band, with typical output power of 16 dBm and phase noise of −96 dBc/Hz at 1 MHz offset. The module uses a fractional-N phase-locked loop (PLL) to achieve high linearity frequency modulation and improve target detection and range resolution.
The digital processor module has four, 40 MSPS analog-to-digital converters to support the two receive channels, with an FPGA for signal processing to maintain design flexibility. A high speed USB peripheral controller enables data transfer up to 480 Mbps. A user-friendly graphical user interface (GUI) allows easy control of signal waveforms, bandwidth, sampling rates, stream filtering, display parameters and I/Q data recording and export.
Ancortek Inc.
Fairfax, Va.
www.ancortek.com