'Cause the rear-view ain't doin' it for me.

January 10, 2007 5:12 PM

I want automotive radar in my Subaru. Where can I buy such a unit from somebody as a turn-key (I want programming interfaces, too)? Failing that, where do I get a narrow-band phased-array radar-frequency beamformer module?
posted by Netzapper to technology (7 comments total)

I'm a little confused on what you want.

Do you want a radar detector? Any electronics store has several.

Do you want on on-board radar set to detect other cars? I've never heard of this, most drivers use something called "eyesight" to spot other cars.
posted by Marky at 6:31 PM on January 10, 2007

Do you mean one of these?

They're generally ultrasonic (i.e. sonar, not radar). Your local car stereo & alarm store will generally sell them installed.

I've always found the corners of Subarus easy to see, so I'm not sure why you'd need one of these things, but there you go.
posted by toxic at 6:47 PM on January 10, 2007

Let me try again:

I'm a software engineer and hardware tinkerer. I have done research in computer vision. I'm not looking for a radar detector (I've *built* one); nor a parking sensor (I've built a similar doohickey for a robot).

I want RADAR. Like, multi-targeting/tracking, wide-field, low-bandwidth, phased-array radar. I'm talking thousands of dollars of outlay, and the most geek bragging points ever.
posted by Netzapper at 7:23 PM on January 10, 2007

Okay, guys, I can't constructively answer this question, but a quick google indicates that yep, automotive radar exists, it looks like it's really radar, and no, the op isn't having trouble parking, or wearing a tinfoil hat or whatever.
posted by pullayup at 7:26 PM on January 10, 2007

crap, shoulda previewed. Sorry.
posted by pullayup at 7:27 PM on January 10, 2007

For those of you wondering, "Why?", let me just say that such a system has already been adopted and made available by a large German automaker (Daimler-Chrysler nee Mercedes), and is used for automatic cruise control.

Besides, it's frikkin cool.
posted by TheNewWazoo at 8:36 PM on January 10, 2007

You might want to look into components for marine and small aircraft radars as a starting point, though I don't know where you'll put the radome, maybe on the car's roof?

This is a fantastic idea by the way.
posted by atrazine at 3:39 AM on January 11, 2007