Dutch semiconductor giant NXP has combined UWB secure ranging and short-range radar to enable autonomous industrial and consumer IoT applications.

The Trimension SR250 is a single-chip that integrates on-chip processing capabilities with short-range UWB radar and secure ranging. This is the next step in NXP’s work to enable a world that anticipates and automates, enabling a wide variety of user experiences based on location, presence or motion detection across consumer or industrial IoT applications.

The device combines low-power short-range UWB radar operating at 6 to 8.5GHz, secure ranging and angle-of-arrival (AoA) calculations to enable use cases based on UWB mapping, human or object detection and secure positioning. This lets it deliver convenience, efficiency, safety and privacy features in a smart home, such as turning lights or TVs on or off based on presence, enabling secure home access capabilities, or even monitoring the safety of an elderly person living alone without intrusive cameras.

It also supports safety, security and productivity applications in industrial environments, being capable of tracking location for workers, goods or assets, access control, collision avoidance, danger zone detection and more.

“The Trimension SR250 represents the next generation of NXP’s advanced UWB, delivering a giant leap towards a world that anticipates and automates,” said Philippe Dubois, senior vice president at NXP. “The precise, secure and energy-efficient detection of presence, motion or location enables an almost unlimited number of new user experiences. Our customers across the consumer and industrial IoT will benefit from the reduced power consumption and the streamlined design process.”

The Trimension SR250 supports 3D AoA and time difference of arrival (TDOA), and takes time of flight (ToF) readings accurate to within ±5cm. For use cases that require added security, it can be combined with the EdgeLock SE051W secure element. To simplify certification and ensure interoperability, it was developed based on the FiRa Consortium 3.0 technical specifications.

While UWB secure ranging requires communication between two UWB-enabled devices to detect location or presence, UWB radar is a passive option requiring only the single-chip IC. Leveraging low-power radar operating at 6 to 8.5GHz, the SR250 can detect presence, location or even motion, such as breathing or gestures. It can also detect and track one or more people or objects when interfaced to a host processor running AI and ML algorithms, such as the i.MX family of applications processors, RW61x family of wireless MCUs or the MCX family of MCUs.

The SR250 integrates on-chip radar processing, allowing it to perform radar processing autonomously and reducing the overall energy consumption of the system. For example, the host processor can be in a deep sleep mode, while the SR250 can use the on-chip presence detection to sense a moving person or object. This on-chip processing is crucial to the autonomous home and industrial IoT capabilities, allowing the system to take actions, such as activating or deactivating an HVAC or autonomous robot as a user enters or leaves a defined zone, such as a room in a smart home or a danger zone in a smart factory.

The SR250 is supported by firmware, middleware and sample applications to simplify development and deployment. This includes firmware with support for updates, APIs for the UWB command interface, updateable middleware, including C programming language APIs for radar operation, and example radar applications and algorithms.

The Trimension SR250 (NXP.com/Trimension) is sampling and is expected to be generally available before the end of the year, including through NXP’s ecosystem of module partners.

NXP Semiconductors (www.nxp.com) has operations in more than 30 countries and posted revenue of $13.28bn in 2023.