Panasonic has developed a millimeter-wave radar technology for next-generation traffic safety systems that enables to detect humans and vehicles in a range of several meters.
This new radar technology allows for detecting objects outdoors in poor visibility conditions, such as night, rain and snow, as well as against the sunlight.
Panasonic said the technology installed in traffic surveillance sensors located at intersections will help increase automotive safety by detecting pedestrians and bicycles hidden in the driver's blind spots.
The new radar technology enables traffic monitoring sensors at intersections to detect pedestrians and bicycles up to 40m ahead even at nighttime and under bad weather conditions.
Panasonic's new radar technology is capable of detecting humans and cars simultaneously in spite of the fact that human body reflects extremely weak radar signals compared with car body.
The radar technology can be effective even in nighttime, rain, snow or dense fog unlike optical and infrared cameras and laser sensors, whose detection performance depends on visibility conditions.
Coded pulse modulation technique and adaptive antenna technique have been incorporated in the new radar technology to improve sensitivity characteristics, and achieve high angle resolution even with a small antenna.
