A Miniature Radar Enables Smart Phones To See Through Walls

Israeli Sensor Developer Raises $22 Million to Market MIMO Radar on a Chip

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The Vayyar sensors look into objects using MIMO radar technology that provides a new perspective of objects, indicating shape, movement and composition of objects or materials even when these objects are invisible to the human eye. Photo: Vayyar
The Vayyar sensors implements a Muliple-Input-multiple-output (MIMO) radar on a chip. Photo: Vayyar
The Vayyar sensors implements a Muliple-Input-multiple-output (MIMO) radar on a chip. Photo: Vayyar

Tel Aviv, December 15, 2015: An Israeli company is developing a new 3D-imaging sensor that can see through objects and monitor the location, function and composition of multiple objects in a monitored space. The company announced yesterday the completion of a US$22 million funding round, in time for the planned introduction of its new sensor.

Vayyar’s new sensor technology could revolutionize machine sensing in number of applications, for example, in the field of robotic sensing, cancer detection and smart buildings.

Based around a Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) radar technology, the new sensor is a radar system on a chip operating in the ultra wide band spanning over the 3-10 GHz frequency spectrum. The sensor uses multiple antennas operating in different polarization, over multiple wavelength and measuring multipath returns, along with doppler measurements, analysing target location, speed and movement. The system also provides RF imaging and relative permittivity measurements, to analyse the composition of transparent or opaque liquids.

Among the applications foreseen for the new sensors are ‘clip on’ assemblies that could turn smart phones into imaging devices that can see through walls or help medics to locate shrapnels or bullets inside the body of wounded soldiers. Other applications will enable to see through skin and tissue to detect cancer masses or track a person’s location and vital signs as they move through a ‘smart building’.

Vayyar Imaging plans to unveil its latest technology at the upcoming 2016 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) January 6-9, 2015 in Las Vegas.