This potentially has some very interesting ramifications. If you Google“ Echodyne,” you’ ll find that a lot of stories have been written about using metamaterials to create either( pick your generation’ s pop-culture reference) Harry Potter invisibility cloaks or Klingon Bird-of-Prey cloaking devices. Someday, in theory, metamaterials could be created that simply absorb light, rendering objects made from them effectively invisible.
But in the here and now, metamaterials also can be used to affect how radio waves behave. And because of that, Echodyne has been able to use metamaterials to create radars that perform like state-of-the-art phased array radars, but with a fraction of the size, weight, energy requirement – and cost.
There are all sorts of boundary-pushing potential applications for this kind of technology, said Jeff Finan.
One of them is self-driving cars, which will need very effective, lightweight radars if they are to become a safe part of everyday traffic, he said.
But there are also a lot of potential applications involving flying things – drones especially.
Last year, Echodyne successfully field-tested a radar about the size and weight of a tablet computer that provided real-time images clear enough to allow the unmanned test vehicle to avoid oncoming aerial traffic. The goal is to free drones from having to be operated in line-of-sight environments – that is, in situations where the operator can and must visually track the unmanned vehicle.
Doing that will open up a whole host of potential uses, Finan said. There’ s Amazon’ s much-talked-about proposal to create a fleet of autonomous package-delivery drones, for example.
There are also potential security applications or military uses – ISIS, for example, has been using small off-theshelf commercial drones to carry and drop grenades and other small bombs. Echodyne’ s radar could be used to guide anti-drone drones to stop them.
Plus there are other potentially lucrative – if less dramatic – uses: drones with precise, light-weight radar could help farmers identify which plants in their field aren’ t getting enough water, or might be infested with insects. Spraying a handful of plants with pesticides – rather than an entire field – would be better for the environment, and cheaper for the farmer.
And then there are potential uses to make railroads safer, Finan said. Using drones to do constant safety inspections on rail lines could prevent those
accidents – and the savings from preventing just one train derailment could pay for an entire fleet of drones.
One of the uses Echodyne wanted to study was whether their metamaterial radar antennae could be used to improve terrain mapping. The problem, said Finan, is that Echodyne is a very small company. Back in 2016, it had barely 20 employees.( Today the workforce has expanded to more than 60.)
So the company teamed with University of Washington associate engineering professor Matt Reynolds, applied for a JCATI grant, and received $ 99,889 in funding for the project, which determined that: A) the technology would be affordable and effective, and B) there’ s a market to be served, primarily government agencies that need updated terrain maps.
30 NORTHWEST AEROSPACE NEWS