mmWave radar interface and signal processing system

Overview

Millimeter-wave (mmWave) radar systems are widely used in applications such as automotive sensing, robotics, and industrial automation for object detection, range estimation, and velocity measurement.

In this project, students will design and implement a complete interface to a commercial mmWave radar module using either an FPGA platform or an NVIDIA Jetson embedded system. The project will include low-level hardware/software interfacing as well as basic radar signal processing to extract meaningful information from the radar data.

Research activities

You will build a system consisting of the following components:

1. mmWave Radar Module
   • Provides raw ADC or pre-processed radar data
   • Communicates via interfaces such as SPI, UART, LVDS, or Ethernet (depending on module)
2. Processing Platform (choose one):
   • FPGA-based system
     • HDL-based interface (Verilog/VHDL)
     • High-speed data capture and buffering
   • NVIDIA Jetson (or similar embedded Linux platform)
     • Software-based interface (Python/C++)
     • Device driver or API-level integration
3. Host/Visualization Interface
   • Display processed radar outputs
   • Optional real-time visualization or logging to file

Outcomes

By completing this project, you will:

• Develop an interface to acquire raw data from a mmWave radar sensor
• Understand radar data formats and streaming protocols
• Implement real-time or near-real-time data capture and buffering
• Perform basic signal processing (e.g., FFT-based range detection)
• Visualize and interpret radar data (e.g., range profiles or point clouds)

Skills and experience

Understanding of basic signal processing, telecommunication principles and embedded systems.

Keywords

• Signal Processing
• Radar
• FPGA

Contact

Dhammika Jayalath, dhammika.jayalath@qut.edu.au, 0731388034