Low Loss, High Gain Glass Based Radar Arrays

Radar sensing technology is extremely important for safety and situational awareness of manned/unmanned eVTOL vehicles and other autonomous vehicles.  Current solutions can be power inefficient and have variable performance, which is particularly problematic when a large number of sensors are needed and the vehicle is electric.  The work proposed here is to establish light weight, highly efficient radar sensing technology based on thin glass substrates and metaconductor technology to simultaneously provide enhanced performance and reduced size, weight and power over existing solutions.  The innovations are two-fold.  First, we propose using thin glass substrates to take advantage of their intrinsic low loss characteristics, reduced weight and cost-effectiveness.  Second, we will use metaconductor technology instead of standard metal conductors to further dramatically reduce power losses.  Combining these two innovative technologies will result in radar sensing technology with dramatically reduced SWAP characteristics in a cost-effective package giving the opportunity for more complete coverage around the autonomous vehicle.  For aircraft in urban environments, this is critical for overall safety and situational awareness.  Mosaic Microsystems and the University of Florida are uniquely positioned to provide this solution.