NearSight
NearSight lets radar see what’s right in front of it: reliable detection down to 25 cm from the sensor, where radar normally goes blind. It unlocks parking, blind-spot monitoring and tight industrial spaces — and runs in the radar’s existing software, with no new hardware or extra sensors.
25 cm
minimum detection range
No blind spot
right at the sensor
On-chip
runs in the radar
Real-time
live, as the radar runs
Applications
Where accurate close-proximity sensing is vital.
Automotive
Automated parking, kerb-side docking, blind-spot monitoring and low-speed manoeuvres — the car has to see objects right against the bumper.
Industrial
Haul trucks and loaders reversing, plant moving through confined yards — the near field is exactly where the danger is.
Agriculture
Tractors and harvesters working in tight yards and around people, where reliable close-range detection prevents collisions.
Robotics
AGVs and warehouse robots navigating people-dense aisles — docking and pinch points at low speed.
How it works
Seeing through the signal leak that blinds radar up close.
STEP 01
Why radar goes blind up close
FMCW radar listens for the echo of its own signal bouncing off objects — but because it transmits and listens at the same time, a little of that signal leaks straight into the receiver without ever leaving the sensor. The leak shows up right where the closest objects do, which is why the near field is where conventional radar goes blind.
STEP 02
Open up the near field
To keep that leak under control, a radar normally filters out the very signals that close-up objects produce — which is part of why it can’t see them. NearSight carefully re-tunes the radar so those close-range echoes come through clearly, without letting the strong leak create false blips elsewhere.
STEP 03
Filter out the false echoes
This close to the sensor, the radar’s normal way of telling real objects apart from noise stops working well, and stray reflections can look like objects that aren’t there. NearSight leans on how strong each return is to pick out the real ones, and removes the false echoes that something moving close to the radar can throw up.
STEP 04
Reliable detection to 25 cm
The result: the radar reliably sees real objects from just 25 cm away out to its full range — with no change to the data it produces, so everything built on top of it keeps working. NearSight widens what the radar can see, with no new antennas and no extra sensors.
Featured deployment
Closing the radar’s blind spot up close.
NearSight was built and tested on Provizio’s radar in short-range mode — measured against reference targets in a radar test chamber at 25, 50 and 75 cm and from different angles, then proven outdoors with people walking right up to the sensor. It now runs in shipping radar firmware, in real time, alongside the rest of Provizio’s on-radar software — reliably detecting objects as close as 25 cm. For driver-assistance and industrial uses where seeing up close is the deciding factor, NearSight closes the gap.
- Reliably detects objects as close as 25 cm
- Sees through the radar’s own signal leak up close
- Runs in real time, inside the radar
Integration
Built into the radar itself
NearSight runs inside the radar itself, switching on in short-range mode. It combines the re-tuning and clean-up steps above, so everything built on top of the radar simply gets a clearer view up close. The data the radar outputs looks exactly the same — objects near the sensor just start showing up where the signal leak used to hide them.
- Runs inside the radar
- Same data output as before
- Software-only, updatable over the air
Questions, answered
NearSight FAQ
FMCW radar (frequency-modulated continuous-wave — the kind used in vehicles and industrial sensing) listens for the echo of its own signal bouncing off objects, but unlike pulsed radar it transmits and listens at the same time. So a little of its signal leaks straight back in without bouncing off anything. Because that leak never travelled, it lands at the same close-in range as nearby objects. To suppress the leak, the radar filters out that close-in range and removes real close echoes with it. NearSight re-tunes the radar to see through the leak, so it can pick out those close-up objects.
Several applications need radar perception right next to the sensor — automated parking, kerb-side docking, blind-spot monitoring, pedestrian-around-vehicle detection, heavy industrial machinery in tight working areas. Without near-field reliability, these applications either need a different sensor for the close-in case (camera, ultrasonic) or have to live with a perception blind spot.
NearSight is a software layer in the radar’s signal-processing chain — it runs on the radar’s existing on-board chip (the SoC that already handles its signal processing), so no extra processor, GPU or separate compute is needed.
On Provizio’s radar in short-range mode: measured against reference targets in a radar test chamber at 25, 50 and 75 cm and from different angles, then outdoors with people walking right up to the sensor. Distances were accurate to within a few centimetres, and NearSight now runs in shipping radar firmware.
NearSight is software, so the approach can move to other radars of the same type, with some tuning for each one.
See what’s right in front of the radar.
If you need radar that can reliably see what’s right in front of it — for parking, blind-spot, or tight industrial spaces — NearSight is the software that gets you there. Talk to our radar team.