Many of us have seen exciting applications for radar to see through walls, detect cancer, or scan people for hidden weapons. But much of this technology has to date been too expensive for wide use and adoption in commercial markets. Vayyar is changing all of that with their low cost radar on chip. Founded in 2011, Vayyar started with the vision to develop a new modality for breast cancer detection by using RF to quickly and affordably look into human tissue to detect malignant growths. As the technology matured and evolved, Vayyar leveraged it to open up new capabilities and widen its application scope to additional markets including smart home, security, automotive, retail, elderly care, construction, agriculture and more.

Vayyar has its own line of consumer products launched under the ‘Walabot’ brand that images what is behind walls but the company also provides off-the-shelf development kits to give companies hands-on experience and the ability to develop applications in-house. The company encourages long-term partnerships with corporations to develop tailored solutions to meet specific needs. One example is Mini-Circuits who recently announced a partnership with Vayyar to offer microwave transceiver project kits with broad applicability for students and university programs spanning topics in electromagnetic theory, RF/microwave engineering, RF systems, and radar technology.

The first project kit, UVNA-63, includes all the elements students/hobbyists need to build a fully functioning vector network analyzer, develop S-Parameter algorithms, and perform real-time measurements of 2-port RF devices.  The kit comprises Vayyar's high-performance transceiver chip with a variety of RF components from Mini-Circuits along with control software, and a development environment for Python and MATLAB®.

Vayyar’s chip covers imaging and radar bands from 3 to 81 GHz with 72 transmitters and 72 receivers. Enhanced by an integrated, high-performance DSP with large internal memory, the sensor does not need any external CPU to execute complex imaging algorithms. Multiple signals are sent, received and analyzed enabling the creation of high-resolution 3D images. Because it integrates a large number of transceivers and an advanced DSP, it is able to create high-resolution contours with high accuracy for imaging.

At EDI CON USA, we are excited to have Ovi Jacob,  Director of Business Development at Vayyar Imaging, giving the plenary talk on Oct 17 entitled “Looking Deeper: Using Radar to Save Lives and Improve the World.” It will cover subjects from life-saving cancer detection to everyday applications in automobiles and smart homes with examples of how novel uses of radar are improving the world. This talk will describe radar on chip systems and accompanying applications across industry.

In addition, Vayyar and Mini-Circuits will be giving an EDI CON University course where students and young engineer will work in teams to build a VNA, load the scripts, discuss the math behind the measurements, make measurements, and see if they got the measurement correct. The VNA Kit includes all the hardware (provided by Mini Circuits) and software (provided by Vayyar) to generate the VNA transmitter signals and capture/receive signals (reference and reflected) to implement a full vector measurement function and generate a complete set of microwave network analysis.

Register now for EDI CON USA Oct 17-18 in Santa Clara at www.ediconusa.com so you can attend these interesting and motivating sessions along with many others.