by John Gilles
Your car will know exactly where your garage ends. Your bathtub will know precisely how much water you'd like in it. Your toaster will know where the bread is at all times. Because they're all on the radar screen.
"Within a few years radar will be commonplace: Every home will have a dozen sets," University of Nottingham professor Andrew Derrington wrote of radar sets last year in the Financial Times of London.
Now, thanks to an invention by electrical engineer Tom McEwan, the radar revolution may arrive sooner than predicted. McEwan was working on a sophisticated diagnostic system for a laser at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory when, tinkering in his garage, he came up with a way to create a simple radar for US$10 to $15 in off-the-shelf parts that performs the same tasks that previously required a $40,000 machine.
Dubbed Microwave Impulse Radar, or MIR, the technology has almost instantly found applications, partly due to its low cost and small size, says McEwan.
In cooperation with the Livermore lab, which shares the patent rights with McEwan, the inventor has so far signed 17 license agreements and is talking to more than 200 other potential licensees.
The device currently fits on a 1.5-inch circuit board, but McEwan says he expects to fit it onto a silicon chip within months. McEwan says the low-cost device will find many uses as an embedded sensor to detect almost anything from heart attacks to illegal immigrants at border fences.
Amerigon Inc. of Monrovia, California, expects to be manufacturing auto safety devices, such as parking aids and backup warning systems by next year, says Amerigon president Lon Bell.
A North Carolina firm, Remote Data Systems Inc., has developed a battery-operated device to monitor rivers for flash-flooding and to ensure that wastewater treatment pools don't overflow.
Several Fortune 500-sized companies have also taken out radar licenses from McEwan and are preparing products for the marketplace. Among the first may be a new generation of radar-enabled toys.