RadarTag

This U.S. patented tag technology by scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory enhances the visibility of objects to vehicle radar systems by amplifying and retransmitting radar signals, thereby enabling earlier and more reliable detection to help prevent collisions — particularly in applications like autonomous vehicles, transportation, defense, and industrial automation.

• Universal compatibility: Functions with any radar-equipped vehicle regardless of brand or radar type—no special software or calibration needed.
• Compact and lightweight: Small enough to be worn or attached to bikes, helmets, backpacks, traffic cones, or roadside equipment.
• Improved object detection: Makes small or low-visibility objects (like bicycles, pedestrians, or animals) easier for vehicle radar systems to detect.
• Extended detection range: Increases how far away a vehicle can "see" an object, giving more time to react and avoid collisions.
• All-weather reliability: Works effectively in low-light, fog, rain, or other conditions where visual sensors (like cameras) may fail.

The Challenge: 

Modern vehicles, especially those with autonomous driving features or driver-assistance systems, rely heavily on radar to detect nearby objects. However, radar systems struggle with:

Small or non-metallic objects like bicycles, motorcycles, pedestrians, or animals.
Objects with a low radar cross-section, meaning they don’t reflect radar signals well.
Poor weather or visibility conditions, which reduce radar accuracy even further.
Because of this, important objects may not be detected until it’s too late—putting lives at risk and limiting the safety capabilities of smart vehicles.

How it Works: 

When a radar-equipped vehicle sends out signals to detect what’s ahead, the tag receives those signals, filters and strengthens them using built-in electronics, and then sends them back out. This makes the object carrying the tag — such as a bicycle, person, or piece of roadside equipment — appear larger and easier to detect on the radar. The design of the tag ensures that the signals are amplified without causing interference, so it works smoothly with any standard automotive radar system. As a result, vehicles can recognize tagged objects from farther away.

• Automotive & Autonomous Vehicles
• Commercial Transportation & Fleet Vehicles
• Defense & Security
• Industrial Automation & Robots
• Consumer Safety & Outdoor Gear

RadarTag is progressing toward broad real-world deployment, with near-term efforts focused on accelerated testing, system refinement, and integration into advanced sensing ecosystems. Building on the demonstrated ability to significantly increase the effective radar cross-section of objects—improving detection ranges for vehicles, cyclists, pedestrians, and infrastructure—future development will prioritize transition into automotive, commercial transportation, industrial automation, and defense markets. These sectors demand high reliability, robust detection under adverse conditions, and seamless sensor interoperability, making them well aligned with the technology’s core strengths. LANL is seeking strategic industry partners to support the next stage of RadarTag maturation, particularly automotive OEMs, ADAS and autonomous-vehicle sensor suppliers, fleet-safety technology providers, and manufacturers of radar or multimodal perception systems. Potential partners span startups, mid-size firms, and major sensor and automotive suppliers identified in the commercialization analysis.

Key objectives for the next phase include:

• Integrating RadarTag into production-feasible sensing and vehicle-safety architectures, including automotive radar platforms, smart-city infrastructure, commercial fleet systems and industrial robotics.
• Conducting targeted field testing and validation to optimize antenna configurations, signal conditioning, power options and multi-tag deployment strategies—ensuring accuracy, reliability and scalability across diverse environments and use cases.
• Collaborating with partners to develop application-specific variants, such as tags for bicycles, motorcycles, pedestrians, construction equipment and autonomous systems, leveraging the patent’s modular architecture (e.g., multi-antenna configurations, reflection amplifiers).
• Pursuing licensing agreements and co-development pathways that accelerate commercialization in key markets, including automotive safety, industrial automation and defense sensing systems.

By advancing these objectives, LANL aims to demonstrate RadarTag’s value in high-stakes operational environments—where extended detection range and improved radar visibility directly translate to enhanced safety, reduced collisions and improved system performance.