NXP SR250 combines UWB and SR radar
- September 25, 2024
- William Payne
NXP Semiconductors has a single-chip solution that integrates on-chip processing capabilities with both short-range UWB radar and secure ranging. It is designed for a range of IoT applications, particularly industrial IoT, logistics, and home automation. The company says the NXP Trimension SR250 is the first chip to provide such features.
The Trimension SR250 combines low-power short-range UWB radar operating at 6-8.5 GHz, secure ranging and angle-of-arrival (AoA) calculations to enable new use cases based on UWB mapping, human or object detection and secure positioning. It supports safety, security and productivity applications in industrial and warehouse environments, being capable of tracking location for workers, goods or assets, access control, collision avoidance, and danger zone detection.
It can also be used in smart home applications, such as turning lights or TVs on or off based on presence, enabling secure home access capabilities, or monitoring the safety of an elderly person living alone without intrusive cameras.
The Trimension SR250 is part of a broad UWB portfolio spanning devices across automotive, mobile and IoT applications. It supports 3D AoA, time difference of arrival (TDOA), and takes time of flight (ToF) readings accurate to within ±5 cm. For use cases that require added security, it can be combined with the EdgeLock SE051W secure element. To simplify certification and ensure interoperability, the Trimension SR250 is 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 solution requiring only the single-chip IC. Leveraging low-power radar operating at 6-8.5 GHz, the Trimension 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/ML algorithms, such as the i.MX family of applications processors, RW61x family of wireless MCUs or the MCX family of MCUs.
The Trimension SR250 integrates on-chip radar processing, allowing it to perform radar processing autonomously and reducing the overall energy consumption of the system. The host processor can be in a deep sleep mode, while the Trimension SR250 can use the on-chip presence detection to sense a moving person or object. This on-chip processing supports autonomous home and Industrial IoT capabilities, allowing the system to take actions, such 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 Trimension 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.