Radar Sensors: A Core Smart Home Solution

XENSIV™ 60GHz Radar Sensor Solution for Optimized System Performance
Smart occupancy counting, motion detection, and object presence detection functions

[Editor's Note] With the acceleration of digitalization, interest in smart buildings and smart homes is intensifying. In particular, with the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic leading to increased time spent at home, implementing smart buildings and smart homes for residents is becoming increasingly important. In the midst of this, we met with Lee Sang-min, Vice President of Infineon Korea, a global semiconductor solutions company, to hear about the radar solutions Infineon provides for industrial, consumer, and IoT applications.

■ I wonder what functions smart buildings and smart homes will be able to perform in the future.

With the aging population, environmental issues, and sustainable energy supply emerging as key challenges, and digitalization accelerating, interest in smart buildings and smart homes is growing.

Smart buildings and smart homes perform a variety of functions, including improving quality of life and convenience, enhancing security, and increasing energy efficiency, through seamless and natural interactions between people and sensing devices.

■ Please introduce some of the solutions that should be considered when implementing smart buildings and smart homes.

When implementing smart home devices, high accuracy and stability are important.

For stable operation, it must not be sensitive to environmental factors such as fog, dust, and temperature, and must be smart, safe, and energy-efficient.

For smart buildings, low standby power, high power efficiency, and reliability are crucial for sustainable and smooth operation.

Finally, personal information and privacy protection must be taken into consideration to prevent damage such as personal information leaks due to hacking.

■ Why is radar emerging as a key solution for implementing smart buildings and smart homes?

Compared to other sensors, radar is used in dark environments, both indoors and outdoors, or in environments with short visibility., and can minimize the effects even in harsh outdoor temperature and humidity environments.

Additionally, unlike optical, vision, infrared, and ultrasonic systems, radar can provide performance optimized for system requirements without external exposure or opening windows, making it a key solution for implementing smart buildings and smart homes.

■ Please introduce the ultra-small XENSIV™ 60GHz radar MMIC series, which is optimized for application design using the 60GHz frequency band among Infineon's XENSIV™ sensor solutions.

Infineon's highly integrated XENSIV™ 60GHz radar sensor solutions, featuring a small form factor and low power consumption, provide innovative and intuitive sensing capabilities for many applications.

Infineon's 60GHz IoT radar sensor is size-optimized and comes with an antenna in the package.

Capable of detecting minute movements in the millimeter range through FMCW operation mode across an ultra-wide bandwidth of 5.5 GHz, the BGT60TR13C enables advanced radar sensing including presence detection, tracking, biometric detection, and gesture control.

Also available is the BGT60LTR11AIP, the smallest motion sensor on the market, featuring a built-in antenna and integrated detection of motion and motion direction.

The device supports multiple operating modes, including a fully autonomous mode that requires no software or hardware design.

Anyone can easily use radar technology because it does not require separate RF and antenna design or radar signal processing know-how.

■ XENSIV™ 60GHz radar MMIC series If there are any practical application cases that have been utilized

The BGT60TR13C and BGT60LTR11AIP, designed for industrial, consumer, and smartphone applications, are featured in the Google Pixel 4 smartphone, enabling motion sensing including gesture control and presence detection.

There are also cases where it is applied to devices that monitor the user's sleep, or to TVs for presence detection and user tracking.

In addition, the BGT60LTR11AIP is being used for motion detection in triggering systems such as lighting, automatic doors, cameras, security systems, and smart home devices.

■ Lastly, please say a word to the readers.

Radar sensors have many advantages over other sensors.

It can be applied to various applications such as a smart entrance counter solution that can effectively suppress the spread of the pandemic, a simple motion detection sensor that replaces PIR sensors, and the distance, angle, speed, and presence of objects.

This webinar will help you select and develop the right radar MMIC for your application. We look forward to your participation.

thank you