Ripple spec to boost radar sensing for years to come, proponents say

Advocates of the new Ripple standard for radar interoperability described futuristic visions for radar sensing at Sensors Converge 2022 that would provide privacy not afforded by cameras.

Such uses could include radar sensing in a shower to detect falls or to monitor the health of humans in deep sleep inside space bio-pods on a long-distance mission to Mars and beyond.

Radar will be commonplace in consumer and medical applications, members of a panel discussing the Ripple standard said, noting that the interoperability standard is expected to aid developers simplify the process to creating applications, so their software is compatible with a variety of radar technologies across a number of hardware vendors.

“There are tremendous innovations ahead of us,” said Blumio CEO Catherine Liao, which is building medical applications based on radar to read bio markers such as blood pressure from outside the body.  

Radar sensors could be installed inside a desktop computer or its keyboard to monitor a person’s health or to aid pediatric cardiologists when monitoring a baby’s heart function, Liao said.  A developer today might take six months to update software to conform to new radar hardware, but Ripple would drastically reduce that time frame.

Ford Motor is studying use of radar for occupant detection inside a vehicle and even to detect the liveliness of occupants, said Nick Colella, senior engineering manager for the carmaker.  

Radar will be useful in fleet operations as well, watching the health of drivers, Colella added.

The Ripple standard was first announced at CES 2022 in January and has been hosted by the Consumer Technology Association with the intent of enabling radar hardware and software interoperability to further growth in general purpose radar. Fewer barriers to entry and clear standards will encourage interoperability and fast-track innovation, said Kerri Haresign, director technology and standards at CTA.

Haresign announced Version 1.1 of the spec was published in recent days.

Google was an early proponent of Ripple along with Blumio, Ford and Infineon, all represented on the Sensors Converge panel on Wednesday. “IoT has meant cameras are used in more places and radar could be used in places where we would have put cameras but radar can accomplish the same use case with better privacy,” said Brandon Barbello, senior product manager for machine intelligence at Google.

 Barbello said upcoming interations of Ripple will specify machine language standard data sets and reference sets. “It is super important and on the docket for the future,” he said, adding nothing official was ready to be announced.

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