Radar smaller than a stamp, tiny as a tack, so small you won't even know you have it on you

RFID ID chips worrying you?  Have no fear!  Now we can put a miniature radar on money, clothes, food, even you!  This way you can be tracked wherever you go in real time.  Big brother is here.  To look out for you of course.  To take care of you.  To protect you.  For your own good, of course.  

 

By Allison Barrie

War Games

FoxNews.com

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  A tiny, 122-MHz radar system recently squeezed onto a microchip by a European consortium. (SUCCESS Project)
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The smallest complete radar system in the world -- measuring less than half an inch on each side -- was squeezed into a low-cost computer chip recently, a European Union team of scientists said.

The Success project, nine academic and industrial partners across Europe, spent three years working on the chip package, with $3.9 million in funding from the European Commission.

And in this case, smaller is better.

"In this area, size matters a lot," said Christoph Scheytt from IHP Microelectronics, one of several companies collaborating on the shrinkage. They achieved the feat by tuning the radar to operate at frequencies beyond 100 GHz.

"The main motivation for using high frequencies rather than lower ones is that the antennas can be smaller."

Operating at 120 GHz, a wavelength of about 2.5 mm, the chip can accurately calculate the distance to an object. By using the Doppler effect, it can also detect moving objects and calculate velocity.

At about €1 for each mini radar, or about $1.30, the technology is also very cheap. But miniaturizing a radar dish wasn’t easy.

An FM radio has an antenna that's about three feet long; a Wi-Fi router's antennas are about 4 inches, the Success project system’s antennas are a fraction of that size.
The chip itself was developed by IHP, while Germany’s Karlsruhe Institute Of Technology handled the antennae design and integration.

Success claims a wide range of uses for a tiny radar, from ultrasonic sensors in cars that detect objects and pedestrians to automatic door controls, even automobile industry and cell phones applications.

In terms of military and security applications, the potential for robotics as well as distance and motion sensing applications is broad.


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