The picture of the distance: Detecting range to help mmWave sensors understand their environment

Since its introduction many years ago, millimeter wave (mmWave) radar has come a long way, with designers now interested in its use for applications such as traffic monitoring, semi-autonomous vehicles and factory automation. The three key measurements that make mmWave radar valuable in applications like these are range, velocity and angle.

In this second installment of a four-part series, I’ll dive deeper into range measurements and how they impact a radar’s usefulness in a variety of applications. In my last blog post, I said, “there is more to measuring range than simply the accuracy of the measurement. Range resolution is the ability to distinguish between two closely spaced objects …High-range resolution also helps improve the minimum measurable distance, which means that the system can detect objects closer to it.”

Here are three videos that show the importance of range measurements in a variety of different applications: