Recent Advances in ASIC Development for Enhanced Performance M-Sequence UWB Systems

Abstract

Short-range ultra-wideband (UWB) radar sensors belong to very promising sensing techniques that have received vast attention recently. The M-sequence UWB sensing techniques for radio detection and ranging feature several advantages over the other short-range radars, inter alia superior integration capabilities. The prerequisite to investigate their capabilities in real scenarios is the existence of physically available hardware, i.e., particular functional system blocks. In this paper, we present three novel blocks of M-sequence UWB radars exploiting application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) technology. These are the integrated 15th-order M-sequence radar transceiver on one chip, experimental active Electronic Communication Committee (ECC) bandpass filter, and miniature transmitting UWB antenna with an integrated amplifier. All these are custom designs intended for the enhancement of capabilities of an M-sequence-based system family for new UWB short-range sensing applications. The design approaches and verification of the manufactured prototypes by measurements of the realized circuits are presented in this paper. The fine balance on technology capabilities (Fc of roughly 120 GHz) and thoughtful design process of the proposed blocks is the first step toward remarkably minimized devices, e.g., as System on Chip designs, which apparently allow broadening the range of new applications.

Analysis and Implementation of Controlled Semiconductor Switch for Ultra-Wideband Radar Sensor Applications

“…The original analysis was performed for the switch behavior at a standard 3.3 V power supply, where setting V gs = 3.3 V resulted in the switch being on or in the closed state. For compatibility with the UWB transceiver [13], it was simpler to use a power supply of −3.3 V for the switch, when by applying the voltage V g = 0 V (GND potential), a potential of V gs = 3.3 V is again created, which closes the switch. The problem occurs when the AC signal is connected, which has a DC value of 0 V, i.e., the potential of GND.…”

“…These pseudo-noise radars have been used in many applications, like nondestructive testing tasks in industrial and civil engineering [5], non-invasive medicine diagnostics, and vital sign detection in medical engineering [11], indoor person localization, search and rescue operations [12], and many others. For these applications, a lot of ASIC circuits have been designed and implemented, such as in [6,[13][14][15].…”

“…The design is implemented in the available low-cost 0.35 µm BiCMOS technology. The reason for choosing this technology was also that other circuit structures of UWB Systems were realized in this technology [13] as well. Finally, this paper concludes with an evaluation of the results.…”

Design and Realization of Ultra-Wideband Differential Amplifiers for M-Sequence Radar Applications

“…Applications of UWB sensor systems based on the M-sequence that have been developed include, for example, ground penetrating radars [13,14], locating and searching for persons behind obstacles and walls [15], locating general objects or use of robots [16], in the field of non-invasive diagnostics and condition detection in medicine [17], and material reflectometry [18,19]. New circuit structures have also been developed for UWB sensor systems, such as transceivers [20,21], wideband couplers [18], and AD converters [22]. With the development of the new circuits came the need to design additional differential amplifiers directly for these purposes and specific implementations.…”

Modeling and Implementation of a Joint Airborne Ground Penetrating Radar and Magnetometer System for Landmine Detection

“…After image migration and MF of the measured data, a GPR image of the M15, M16, and M19 landmines was acquired, as shown in Figure 11c,d. The M-sequence is defined as a pseudo-random sequence generated by a linear generator consisting of an n-bit shift register with appropriate feedback, whereas its periods is N = 2 m − 1 chips, where m is the order of the M-sequence [44]. An ideal 12th order M-sequence waveform source was used for the impulse response function (h) based on Equation (7).…”