A Ku-Band CMOS FMCW Radar Transceiver with Ring Oscillator Based

Waveform Generation for Snowpack Remote Sensing

Yanghyo Kim1, Adrian Tang1,2, Kuo-Nan Liou1, Thomas H. Painter2, and Mau-Chung Frank Chang1
1
University of California at Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA
2
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA

Abstract — This paper presents a Ku-band (14-16 GHz) CMOS (a) (b)
frequency modulated continuous-wave (FMCW) radar transceiver
developed to measure snow depth for water management purposes
and to aid in retrieval of snow water equivalent (SWE). An on-chip
direct digital frequency synthesizer (DDFS) and digital-to-analog
converter (DAC) digitally generates the chirping waveform which
then drives a ring oscillator based Ku-Band phase-locked loop
(PLL) to provide the final Ku-band FMCW signal. Employing a
ring oscillator as oppose to a tuned inductor based oscillator (LC-
VCO) allows the radar to achieve wider chirp bandwidth resulting
in a higher axial resolution (7.5cm) which is needed to accurately
quantify the snowpack profile. The demonstrated radar chip is
fabricated in a 65nm CMOS process, and it consumes 250mW of
power under 1.1V supply, making its payload requirements suitable
for observations from a small UAV.

Index Terms — Ring Oscillator, PLL, FMCW, Snow Depth

Measurement (c) (d)

I. INTRODUCTION
While climate change has influenced a large portion of the
Earth in terms of temperature, sea water level, and precipitation,
some of the most dramatic effects appeared in snowpack
reduction and the subsequent water availability in the state of
California. The snowpack in the Sierra Nevada which provides
60% of the water supply for the State of California [1] has
recorded an annual reduction of at least 20-30% over the last 5
(2011-2016) years, and as a result, the majority of the
southwestern US has remained in a stage 4 (extraordinary level)
drought condition during this period. As an example of these
extraordinary climatic effects, Fig. 1(a) and (b) show a
photograph taken at Dawin’s Glacier in the Sierra Nevada 102
years apart where the retreat of snowpack is clearly visible over
this time-scale. As snowpack retreats, the available water from
snowmelt and runoff becomes limited and a more robust water
resources management is required in order to ensure that water
needs are met throughout the State. Key to this planning exercise
is accurately estimating the water content or snow-water-
equivalent (SWE) available from snowpack, preferably weeks or
months before the melting process occurs. Two major snow
properties influence the water content of a frozen snowpack
months before melting (when conditions are dry): snow cover
and snow depth. The snow cover represents the area covered by
snow, which can be over either flat or 3D terrain. Optical/IR
remote sensing from space/air-borne platforms can detect snow
cover over the surface accurately, but is unable to penetrate into
snow layer. The snow depth is the total depth of snow at each
Fig. 1. (a) Dawin’s Glacier snowpack photo taken in 1908. (b) Photo
take in 2010. (c) Absorption coefficient of dry-snow for a number of
snow densities. (d) Extinction coefficient of dry-snow for several
snow grain sizes.
point within the snow cover. Our work focuses on the
development of frequency modulated continuous-wave (FMCW)
radar to precisely measure the depth of dry-snow comprising of
only ice and air. The electrical properties of dry-snow is a
function of temperature, frequency, density, and grain size. For a
snow particle with a diameter of 1-2mm (typical in the Sierra),
EM theory suggests that the Rayleigh-scattering regime will
occur below 15 GHz so that absorption effects dominate, while
above 15 GHz the Mie-scattering regime must be considered
where the beam scattering is dominated by grain size [2].
Employing available data-sets at these wavelengths [2-4], we
calculated absorption and extinction coefficients over various
density and grain size conditions as shown in Fig. 1(c) and (d).
Note that the absorption coefficient remains below 1dB/m from
0-15 GHz for all typical snow conditions. Given these
absorption parameters and recognizing the need to penetrate
historical record snow depths in the worst case (10m in the
Sierra), while at the same time considering the aperture limited
resolution (target of 6m resolution with 40cm antenna) from
various aircraft altitudes at which the radar will conduct the
remote sensing operation, we have established that 15 GHz
(mid-Ku band) is the optimal frequency for remotely sensing
snowpack properties, providing a compromise among signal-to-
noise ratio (SNR), beam resolution (spot size), and snowpack
penetration. Additionally, the CMOS implementation for the
module electronics was selected to enable a low enough power

64 978-1-5090-6360-4/17/$31.00 ©2017 IEEE

Authorized licensed use limited to: ANNA UNIVERSITY. Downloaded on June 21,2023 at 11:08:20 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
 Fig. 2. A block diagram of the proposed 15GHz radar transceiver
chip. Note that in-phase and quadrature-phase signal path are not
shown for simplicity.
Fig. 3. Summary of the radar specification.
consumption so that the radar module could be operated from a
small UAV platform from altitudes ranging from 75 to 125m,
which should sufficient to clear the 100m tall Giant Sequoia
trees well-known in Sierra Nevada forests.
II. SYSTEM SPECIFICATION AND 15GHZ RADAR
TRANSCEIVER DESIGN
The range resolution of FMCW radar is governed by the
division of speed-of-light and twice the chirp bandwidth. We
first set the axial resolution of 7.5cm in the snow based on water
management requirements, which results in a chirp bandwidth of
2 GHz (20% fractional bandwidth at 15GHz). To achieve a
compact transceiver architecture while supporting such a wide
chirp bandwidth, we adopted a direct phase-lock-loop (PLL)
based chirp generation [5] equipped with a ring based local
oscillator [6]. As shown in Fig. 2, an externally provided
250MHz crystal clocks the combination of DDFS-DAC and
produces the base FMCW chirp signal from 54.6875MHz to
62.5MHz considering the PLL's operation range of 14GHz to
16GHz and its fixed divider ratio of 256. This is accomplished
by synchronously counting the frequency control word (FCW)
of the DDFS on each clock edge to create a frequency ramp of
discrete frequency steps (stair-case like). The DDFS frequency
control carries 19bits of precision, and with the clock frequency
of 250MHz, each frequency step increases by 238.42Hz during
the chirp. Then, using the total FCW code range (229376-
65
Authorized licensed use limited to: ANNA UNIVERSITY. Downloaded on June 21,2023 at 11:08:20 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
Fig. 4. Detailed schematic of main RF signal path.
(a) (c)
0.1V
Magnitude (dB)
Frequency (Hz)
PLL Parameter Loop Filter (b)
Division Ratio 256
CP Current (mA) 0.8 110ɏ
350pF
KVCO (GHz/V) 20 6.7nF
Loop Bandwidth (MHz) 1
Fig. 5. (a) Ring oscillator frequency of operation that covers 2GHz of
chirp frequency over 0.1V of control voltage range. (b) PLL
parameters used for the PLL working as a frequency interpolator. (c)
Closed-loop behavior of the PLL.
262144) corresponding to the PLL's chirp bandwidth and the
clock period of 0.004ȝs, we can calculate the chirp time (radar
integration time) of 131.072ȝs, which is fast enough to acquire
from an aircraft without blur. Given the chirp time and the
expected altitude (75-125m) of our observing aircraft or UAV,
we can expect the final returned intermediate (IF) frequency
from snowpack to exist around 10MHz. A summary of the above
specification is listed in Fig. 3. The low frequency chirp is then
provided to the input of the 15GHz PLL which directly
multiplies the low frequency chirp by a factor of 256 to produce
the final FMCW waveform. For the PLL design, we employed a
ring-based voltage controlled oscillator (VCO) instead of
inductor based LC-VCO to achieve a wide frequency tuning
range. As shown in Fig. 4, we implemented a 4-stage ring
oscillator to provide both in-phase (I) and quadrature-phase (Q)
carrier signals for a single-side band processing when necessary.
Each ring cell consists of differential input pair and cross-
coupled PMOS load, and the extra PMOS device tunes the
frequency with a varying amount of current. At the I and Q port
from the VCO, we inserted a 5-stage resistor-loaded high-speed
differential amplifier as a buffer to drive a pre-driver for the
transmitter (TX) output, a local oscillator (LO) driver for the
mixer, and a current-mode logic (CML) based divider for the
feedback in the PLL. In the TX path, we implemented the pre-
driver with a transformer coupled common source amplifier and
delivered 0dBm (measured) of output power to the external
power amplifier (PA). Finally, the off-chip MMIC PA module
delivers 0.5W of power to a horn antenna. In the LO path for the
down-conversion, an LO driver, which is designed by a
978-1-5090-6360-4/17/$31.00 ©2017 IEEE
 Fig. 6. (a) Antennas, reference clock, and the test PCB arrangement.
(b) The die-photo of 15GHz transceiver.
transformer coupled common source amplifier, provides
sufficient signal swing to completely switch the mixer devices.
Lastly, in the receiver (RX) path, a parallel horn antenna
receives the return signal, and one-stage low-noise amplifier
(LNA) provides 10~14dB of gain with 7dB of noise figure
performance (simulated). The on-chip mixer then outputs each I
and Q IF signals for further fast Fourier transform (FFT) Fig. 7. (a) Measured frequency chirp at the control voltage test point
processing in the oscilloscope. and time domain reference chirp signal. (b) Measured 15GHz FMCW
To understand the frequency chirp behavior better, the PLL spectrum with a 2GHz chirp bandwidth. (c) Demonstration with
parameters and loop behavior are studied in Fig. 5. The designed target. (d) Measured spectrum with and without target.
ring oscillator runs from 17.2GHz to 13.2GHz over 0.2V of the
snowpack present, and then plotted both spectrums in Fig. 7(d)
control voltage range with a VCO gain (KVCO) of around -
where the return of snowpack surface is clearly present.
20GHz/V as shown in Fig. 5(a). The loop bandwidth of the PLL
is selected carefully to filter the sharp frequency steps (resulting
phase discontinuities) and turn it into a smooth frequency ramp. IV. CONCLUSION
In other words, the PLL functions as a frequency interpolator.
We have implemented and demonstrated a Ku-Band CMOS
Based on the DDFS clock frequency and desired level of
radar transceiver to measure snow depth from an airborne
discontinuity suppression of at least 60dB (corresponding to the
platform. The transceiver features a DDFS-DAC chirp generator
radar’s dynamic range), we set the loop bandwidth at 1MHz and
to create the FMCW signal and a ring-oscillator based PLL to
plotted a subsequent closed-loop behavior in Fig. 5(c) using the
convert it to the final 15 GHz frequency. The radar supports the
PLL parameter shown in Fig. 5(b).
wide chirp bandwidths of 2GHz defined by the radar resolution
(7.5cm) that is necessary to sense the snow depth for water
III. MEASUREMENT RESULTS
management applications. The CMOS implementation allows
The radar system was fabricated in 65nm CMOS with the die- the demonstrated radar to fit the payload of a small UAV
photo shown in Fig. 6(a) and (b). We used standard Ku-band platform. The proposed transceiver consumes 250mW of power
horn antennas for a demonstration and first captured a time under 1.1V supply.
domain waveform of the frequency chirp by measuring the
control voltage of the PLL. Note that as the VCO itself is non-
REFERENCES
linear and placed within the PLL control loop, this ramp is
neither expected or desired to be perfectly linear. Second we [1] www.sierranevada.ca.gov.
captured the time domain return signal at the IF port when the [2] M. T. Hallikainen, et. al., "Extinction Behavior of Dry Snow in the
18-to-90GHz Range", IEEE Transaction on Geoscience and
radar was pointed directly at the floor 1.5m away, proving the IF Remote Sensing, vol. GE-25, no. 6, 1987.
content with a modest distortion between chirps. These two [3] J. W. Glen, and P. G. Paren, "The electrical Properties of Snow
time-domain waveforms are shown in Fig. 7(a). In addition, we and Ice", Journal of Glaciology, vol. 15, p. 15-38 , 1975.
connected the TX output directly to a spectrum analyzer to [4] A. Stogryn, "A Study of the Microwave Brightness Temperature of
confirm the chirp frequency with the measurement shown in Fig Snow from the Point of View of Strong Fluctuation Theory", IEEE
Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing, vol. GE-24, no.
7(b). Note that the full 14-16 GHz bandwidth is uniformly 2, 1986.
occupied, indicating that the FMCW chirp is highly linear as [5] T. Mitomo, et al., "A 77GHz 90nm CMOS Transceiver for FMCW
equal chirp time for each frequency. The large glitches at Radar Applications", IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits, vol. 45,
endpoints are a result of the chirp using slightly more time at the no. 4, 2010.
endpoints during turn-around periods between each chirp. [6] Y. Kim, et al., "An 8Gb/s/pin 4pJ/b/pin Single-T-Line Dual
(Base+RF) Band Simultaneous Bidirectional Mobile Memory I/O
Finally, to demonstrate the targeted measurement of snowpack Interface with Inter-Channel Interference Suppression", IEEE
depth, we placed a 10cm (comparable to our radar resolution) International Solid-State Circuits Conference, 2012.
box of Styrofoam pellets which has similar dielectric properties
to dry-snow in the radar beam. We captured the IF time domain
signal and computed the FFT with and without this simulated

66 978-1-5090-6360-4/17/$31.00 ©2017 IEEE

Authorized licensed use limited to: ANNA UNIVERSITY. Downloaded on June 21,2023 at 11:08:20 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.