A Ku -Band CMOS FMCW Radar Transceiver for Snowpack Remote Sensing

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A Ku -Band CMOS FMCW Radar Transceiver for Snowpack Remote Sensing

Journal Article (2018)

Author(s)

Yanghyo Kim (California Institute of Technology)

Theodore J. Reck (California Institute of Technology)

Maria Alonso-Delpino (Jet Propulsion Lab, Pasadena, CA)

Thomas H. Painter (California Institute of Technology)

Hans Peter Marshall (Boise State University)

Edward H. Bair (University of California)

Jeff Dozier (University of California)

Goutam Chattopadhyay (University of California)

Kuo Nan Liou (University of California)

Mau Chung Frank Chang (California Institute of Technology)

Adrian Tang (California Institute of Technology)

CMOS Phase-locked loop (PLL) Ring oscillator Frequency-modulated continuous-wave (FMCW) Range correlation Snow depth measurement

DOI related publication

https://doi.org/10.1109/TMTT.2018.2799866 Final published version

To reference this document use

https://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:88313266-c0da-4e47-8b12-c869f39ac8ba

More Info

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Publication Year

2018

Language

English

Issue number

5

Volume number

66

Pages (from-to)

2480-2494

Downloads counter

278

Abstract

This paper presents a Ku -band (14-16 GHz) CMOS frequency-modulated continuous-wave (FMCW) radar transceiver developed to measure dry-snow depth for water management purposes and to aid in retrieval of snow water equivalent. An on-chip direct digital frequency synthesizer and digital-to-analog converter digitally generates a chirping waveform which then drives a ring oscillator-based Ku -Band phase-locked loop to provide the final Ku -band FMCW signal. Employing a ring oscillator as opposed to a tuned inductor-based oscillator (LC-VCO) allows the radar to achieve wide chirp bandwidth resulting in a higher axial resolution (7.5 cm), which is needed to accurately quantify the snowpack profile. The demonstrated radar chip is fabricated in a 65-nm CMOS process. The chip consumes 252.4 mW of power under 1.1-V supply, making its payload requirements suitable for observations from a small unmanned aerial vehicle.