Page 11 - EE Times Europe Magazine – June 2024

EE|Times EUROPE 11

AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES | TRENDS
The Autonomous Car Industry in 2024:

Sensors, Software and Safety

By James Jeffs, IDTechEx

he automotive industry is going through the most transformative In recent years, advances in semiconductor
journey in its history. Only 15 years ago, autonomous cars were technology and the emerging demands of the
a pipe dream; electric cars were the butt of jokes; and safety was autonomous driving industry have forced radar
to evolve. It has sprouted more transmitter and
T reactive, aiming to minimize the consequences of collisions rather receiver channels, growing from 1 × 2 to 3 ×
than prevent them. Now, in 2024, autonomous mobility services are available 4 and then 12 × 16 Tx/Rx arrays from leading
Tier 1 companies and 48 × 48 arrays from lead-
to the public in multiple locations across the U.S. and China; electric cars are ing startups. Large antenna arrays with many
a desirable mainstream option; and the future of safety is preventative, trying transmitting and receiving channels have
to ensure crashes never happen. This article considers three critical aspects of boosted the resolution of modern radar.
However, transmitting and receiving
future vehicles: sensors, software and safety. channels are like pixels on a camera: Simply
adding more pixels does not necessarily
SENSORS Radar is perhaps the most interesting of make a better camera. As far back as 2013,
Radar, cameras and LiDAR form the core the three categories. Automotive radar has the Nokia Lumina 1020 had 41-megapixel
trio of sensors synonymous with autono- come a long way since it was introduced cameras, yet the iPhone 14 from 2022 uses
mous driving. All three have been evolving to vehicles around the turn of the century. 12-megapixel sensors. Which would take a
in the automotive industry and continue to Back then, radar was good for detecting the better photo? There is more at play than just
progress. LiDAR is coming down to a price distance to the vehicle ahead, and that was the pixel count. Sensitivity, dynamic range
point more palatable for OEMs, radar’s about it. Its major advantage was that it and post-processing software make a signif-
performance and utility continues to evolve, worked under almost any weather conditions icant difference to the end image. Likewise,
and high-resolution camera technologies the car might encounter. Snow, rain, fog, radar performance is not just a measure of
pioneered for smartphone cameras are sandstorm—the radar did not care. For fully transmitters and receivers.
being leveraged in autonomous driving autonomous driving, however, its resolution An emerging priority for radar is dynamic
systems. simply was not sufficient. range, or the ability of radar to detect both

A typical SAE Level 4 sensor suite using radar, camera, and LiDAR units (Source: IDTechEx)

www.eetimes.eu | JUNE 2024