Swadeshi Microprocessor Challenge

Advancement of technology in various fields like Signal Processing and millimeter-wave (mm-wave) semiconductor technology has led to significant improvements in the automobile industry. Recently, a lot of path-breaking research done for enhancing the performance of Autonomous Vehicles, has given a colossal boost to Advanced Driving Assistance Systems (ADAS). In this context, automotive radar has emerged as a low-cost system that provides robust performance in inclement environmental conditions, such as heavy precipitation, pollution, or bad illumination.

Frequency Modulated Continuous Wave (FMCW) radars are becoming increasingly popular in a variety of industries and applications, including Self-Driving Cars. The reasons for their popularity are because of their accurate short-range measurements, low sensitivity to clutter, low cost, robustness and easy integration. The FMCW Radar Module, Ikshana, proposed in this abstract, is planned to be developed using the Vajra(C64-A100, Shakti C-class) SoC developed by IIT Madras. Ikshana is a low cost solution, which can be utilized for developing many useful indigenous products, including autonomous vehicles, Night-Vision goggles (for soldiers) etc. (See Section V).

The prospected module will be implemented on Xilinx Arty A7 FPGA using BSV. It is also planned to add some soft-core extensions1 to the Swadeshi processor, like the FFT Block and CSI Block, as the performance and speed are crucial for this module.

Submitted Proposal as a part of the Swadeshi Microprocessor Challenge being conducted by Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (Govt. of India) to promote the use of indigenous microprocessors in innovative solutions.

The repository for this project can be found here.