Core Intelligent Driving -- A collection of the views of famous experts in production, education, research and enterprises, a comprehensive analysis of THE opportunities and challenges of AI chips, third-generation semiconductors and other opportunities and challenges in the era of "great deformation" of automobiles!
Jiwei network news, more than ten years of blue wisps on the road, 2021 autonomous driving finally ushered in its commercial outbreak of a year. According to data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, as of the third quarter of 2021, the market penetration rate of L2-level autonomous passenger cars in mainland China has reached 20%.
With the continuous penetration of assisted driving/autonomous driving, major sensors will enter a new stage of development. Although entering L3 and higher levels, lidar is beginning to become indispensable, but for L2-level driving assistance, cameras, especially millimeter-wave radar, because it is enough to provide strong performance support, mature technology and cost advantages, the future will still be a must in the perception scheme, for L3 or even higher level of automatic driving, millimeter-wave radar will also be an important sensor.
Aptiv, a leading supplier in the field of automotive ADAS, recently said at a media exchange meeting that it is still very optimistic about the role of millimeter-wave radar in automatic driving, for several reasons: First, compared with the system based on visual sensors such as cameras, the system configuration centered on millimeter-wave radar is not only more powerful, but also the computing power it requires and the requirements for energy consumption are reduced by 60%, and the system cost is reduced by at least 25%; second, millimeter-wave radar not only has good distance and speed detection capabilities. It can also be flexibly installed in various positions of the car, it can be safely placed behind the body panel, away from dirt and dust, and due to its all-weather performance, it plays an important role in expanding the operational design of the vehicle, which works well at night or in unfavorable lighting conditions, as well as in rain and snow, to ensure the availability of the relevant functions.
Chip cascaded 4D imaging radar solution, the future is the trend of the times?
Of course, millimeter-wave radar does have some technical limitations, for example, due to the low angular resolution, the detection of the target is limited to a few scattered reflection points, and the contour of the target cannot be imaged, so the detection of some weakly reflective targets will have missed detection or false detection. To this end, Aptiv said that it is effectively eliminating these limitations through artificial intelligence and machine learning technology, so that it can play a role in higher-level autonomous driving, among which a good chip solution is also of great benefit and can help break through the technical bottleneck of millimeter-wave radar.
Texas Instruments (TI), which is deeply involved in millimeter wave radar products, recently released its latest product, AWR2944, which is the second generation of single-chip solutions in TI millimeter wave products, and the product size, resolution and RF comprehensive performance have been greatly improved. Jiang Hong, director of embedded product systems and applications at TI China, told Jiwei Network: "There are hardware acceleration units such as DDMA and C-PHY in the AWR2944, which increase the detection distance by 40% compared with the previous generation, and can solve the missed detection of small objects under strong interference. At the same time, in terms of multi-object detection, AWR2944, including its previous generation, has multi-object detection and tracking capabilities, and many OEMs/tier 1 use it to track 16 targets or more.
In addition to achieving multi-object detection, the angular resolution is maximized, which is also the expectation of the OEM/tier 1. In this regard, Jiang Hong said that from the original 24GHz 1 to 2 receives, to 77GHz 2 send 4 receives, to AWR2944 4 send 4 receive, TI has long pushed through the four-piece cascade, equivalent to 12 fa 16 receipts, there are 196 virtual channels. After more virtual channels, the entire angular resolution will be greatly improved, on the other hand, the virtual channel increases, some of the customer's own algorithms can get more applications, including many algorithms such as beamforming. This is also why since last year everyone thinks that 4D imaging radar is a hot spot, there are many products in the road test ready to get on the car.
There is no doubt that with the continuous evolution of autonomous driving, in the field of millimeter-wave radar, the future is more application of 4D imaging cascade solutions, which can overcome many of the weaknesses of traditional 2D millimeter-wave radar, such as information collection in the vertical dimension and the improvement of angular resolution, and now, the development of this technology has been quite fast, Continental, ZF, Aptiv and other traditional radar suppliers have launched or even received 4D radar front-loading mass production orders.
TI released in 2020 and has mass-produced AWR2243, many OEMs/tier 1 have begun to do 2-piece cascaded, 4-piece cascaded 4D imaging radar, which maintains the accuracy of millimeter wave ranging speed measurement, while also greatly improving in terms of angular resolution, to 1 degree or even lower to 0.1 degrees, generating some new applications of 50,000 point clouds per second. In the future, this technology will develop forward with the increase of transmission and reception channels, the resolution will be higher and higher, and the gap with lidar will gradually narrow.
Millimeter-wave radar is a must for ADAS, and balancing performance with cost is critical
Jiang Hong also believes that at the depot level, lidar will still be used as an option for some high-end automatic driving, but millimeter-wave radar is basically a mandatory option for automotive ADAS and is indispensable, which is determined by a demand and situation in the market.
Industry analysts predict that by 2030, L2+ self-driving cars may account for nearly 50% of total vehicle production. It is precisely in view of the gradual release of the assisted driving/autonomous driving market, traditional automotive chip manufacturers have recently launched new millimeter wave radar products, expanded the chip lineup, and thickened their competitive strength in this field. For example, NXP introduces a new radar processor, the S32R41, which extends the benefits of 4D imaging radar to more cars, and the S32R45, which will begin its first production in the first half of 2022, which is enough to meet the autonomous driving needs of L2+ to L5 levels to build 4D imaging radar for 360-degree surround sensing.
It is understood that the AWR2944 released by TI is suitable for L2 or L2+ applications and scenarios that are currently more mainstream. Specifically, the AWR2944 can be used as a forward angle radar, but also as a forward radar, because it is 4 transceive and 4 rounds, and when its FOV is relatively convergent, it can also detect forward targets very accurately. Jiang Hong said: "If the whole system is upgraded to L3, L4 is also very suitable, for example, there are some cases, L3 above may have 8 radars or more front angle radars." Many customers now use the AWR2944's angle radar and forward radar to design blind spot monitoring systems (BSD), automatic emergency braking systems (AEB), and even driving under the limited conditions of L3, making the AWR2944 as a millimeter wave sensor a sensing unit in the entire system. In addition, there are other applications in the cockpit, and the AWR2944 can also do it. ”
The actual demand for OEMs/tier 1 will also affect the future development of sensors such as millimeter-wave radar, as they need to balance performance and cost. For this reason, in today's intelligent networked cars, there are more and more sensors, and the perception scheme of many cars is 5R1V (5 millimeter wave radar, 1 vision sensor), and then it may be 8R or even higher.
In the sensor program, TI uses RFCMOS to do high integration, the direct advantage of high integration is high cost performance, because it can be used to solve the millimeter wave sensor composed of three subsystems in the past, which is a very important point, for cost considerations, in the same generation to launch a few more cost-effective products, is also one of the plans of TI millimeter wave radar roadmap, while TI is also planning the third generation of millimeter wave radar. On the other hand, following the trend of sensor fusion, TI has TDA2x and TDA4x and other automotive processors, including domain controllers, ADAS processors, TI's millimeter wave radar and TDA4x can form a very good combination, and there are many power management chips, signal, data transmission devices, in short, TI can provide a full set of solutions in ADAS/autonomous driving.
What is the future of millimeter-wave radar?
The future direction of millimeter-wave radar single sensor technology must also be placed in the context of ADAS/autonomous driving, as well as the transformation of automotive technology. At present, the trend in the field of ADAS is mainly dominated and promoted by three major directions.
First, the relevant regulations, there are new car evaluation procedures (NCAP), the United Nations Regulation No. 79, etc., it puts forward higher requirements for the direction of automatic driving and collision requirements, these requirements will promote the continuous advancement of ADAS technology, and TI's AWR2944 is the first single-chip angle radar sensor, integrated with 4 transmitters, can provide good RF performance, 33% higher than the angular resolution of traditional 3 transmitter devices, can help automakers meet the above NCAP safety requirements.
The second is the architecture of the car, the time and cost of the car to market is very critical, which depends on how the architecture is defined, and a good automotive architecture can be reused, thereby greatly accelerating the iteration speed and reducing costs.
Third, emerging sensing technologies continue to be promoted and applied in the field of automatic driving, such as 77GHz millimeter-wave radar and 60GHz millimeter-wave radar in DMS and automatic auxiliary parking vehicles are widely used.
The development of sensors such as millimeter-wave radar closely follows the above corresponding regulations and technologies that require higher and higher requirements for perception, such as sensors to be able to work around the clock, detect distances farther, perceive more information dimensions, and perceive more accurately. Jiang Hong pointed out that since last year, 4D millimeter wave radar is very hot, which is also related to some of the country's laws and policies, forward radar in the Chinese market growth is very fast, there are many consulting companies to give predictions, in 2023 the Chinese market will grow to the world's largest forward radar market.
China's new energy vehicle market from policy-driven to market-driven, rapid landing, the global automotive market is also accelerating the transformation to electrification, this boom for the development of the entire millimeter wave radar will also play a role in promoting. Behind the new energy boom is electronic and intelligent, new energy gives the car a greater possibility to achieve intelligence faster, millimeter wave radar is part of the car intelligence, it is a core device for perception. Jiang Hong emphasized: "In this case, we are very optimistic about millimeter-wave radar, and we expect it to get more shares and achieve wider applications under this wave of intelligence driven by new energy." At present, the application of millimeter-wave radar is still in the first step, multi-cascading and more possibilities have not actually been developed, with the intelligent trend brought by new energy, we believe it will produce more new applications in the future."
(Proofreading/Jimmy)