LAUSR

The performance of CMOS transmitters and receivers operating at the submillimeter electromagnetic wave frequencies have sufficiently improved for use in active transmission and reflection-mode imaging applications that have the potential for broad deployment and utilization. Imaging integrated circuits have the potential to be large in area to support a high number of pixels along with digital backend processing circuits. For high volume imaging applications that may eventually be included in automobiles, smartphones, laptops, tablets, and others, a large manufacturing capacity to support the volume of large area ICs is necessary. For this, the use of CMOS technologies with a much larger manufacturing capacity is favored. It should be possible to improve the performance of CMOS circuits to increase the range, and operation margin and frequency. The electronically steerable submillimeter-wave reflector technology holds the promise for improving the performance and energy efficiency of submillimeter-wave imaging systems by multiple orders of magnitude, and it is a critical research area. Increasing the operating frequency from 430 to 850 GHz using CMOS integrated circuits to improve the angular resolution by 2X at a given form factor (∼0.15° for a reflector diameter of 15 cm) can make the submillimeter-wave imaging competitive to the LIDAR angular-resolution performance, while providing superior capabilities in visually impaired conditions and making the imaging devices more affordable.