Millimeter Wave Sensing: A Review of Application Pipelines and Building Blocks

Abstract

The increasing bandwidth requirement of new wireless applications has lead to standardization of the millimeter wave spectrum for high-speed wireless communication. The millimeter wave spectrum is part of 5G and covers frequencies between 30 and 300 GHz that correspond to wavelengths ranging from 10 to 1 mm. Although millimeter wave is often considered as a communication medium, it has also proved to be an excellent 'sensor', thanks to its narrow beams, operation across a wide bandwidth, and interaction with atmospheric constituents. In this paper, which is to the best of our knowledge the first review that completely covers millimeter wave sensing application pipelines, we provide a comprehensive overview and analysis of different basic application pipeline building blocks, including hardware, algorithms, analytical models, and model evaluation techniques. The review also provides a taxonomy that highlights different millimeter wave sensing application domains. By performing a thorough analysis, complying with the systematic literature review methodology and reviewing 165 papers, we not only extend previous investigations focused only on communication aspects of the millimeter wave technology and using millimeter wave technology for active imaging, but also highlight scientific and technological challenges and trends, and provide a future perspective for applications of millimeter wave as a sensing technology.

Sensors and Sensor Fusion Methodologies for Indoor Odometry: A Review

“…Compared with its counterpart LiDAR, radar has superior detection performance under extreme weather conditions, since waves within this spectrum have weak interaction with dust, fog, rain, and snow. The Millimeter Wave (MMW) spectrum ranges from 30 GHz to 300 GHz (with wavelengths from 10 mm to 1 mm), which provides wide bandwidth and narrow beams for sensing, thus allowing finer resolution [ 105 , 106 ]. …”

Proximity Perception in Human-Centered Robotics: A Survey on Sensing Systems and Applications

“…Consequently, existing expertise from the automotive domain can potentially be utilized towards robotic applications (e. g. [89]). A recent survey by van Berlo et al summarizes the current application fields of radar technologies [90], including the aforementioned domain of automotive and HCI (tracking, gesture recognition, etc. ).…”

Design of Hybrid Beamforming System Based on Practical Circuit Parameter of 6-Bit Millimeter-Wave Phase Shifters

“…Millimeter-wave approaches have proven to be an applicable and promising way to overcome the challenges and limitations of the lower frequency bands. The three most promising mm-wave bands are 28 GHz, 60 GHz, and the E-band, which address the capacity issue for the lower frequency limitation systems [1][2][3][4]. The 5G and beyond new radio (NR) wireless communication systems combine spatial multiplexing and massive multi-input multi-output (mMIMO) beamforming to increase data throughput at millimeter-wave (mmwave) frequencies and achieve greater SNRs.…”