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Greenerwave and Plastic Omnium proposed using antennas and reconfigurable reflectors distributed through a vehicle’s bodywork to create a larger radar aperture. The goal is 4D imaging radar that can map surroundings in three dimensions and measure object speed. The companies announced the collaboration in 2021, but the available company sources do not confirm that the system reached production or met its announced 2025 target.
What the companies announced
Plastic Omnium announced an exclusive partnership with Greenerwave on September 6, 2021, to develop a new generation of 4D imaging radar. Greenerwave brought wave-control technology developed from its work as an Institut Langevin spin-off; Plastic Omnium brought automotive development, body-panel integration, and industrialization capabilities. Plastic Omnium’s announcement described the project as a way to improve vehicle obstacle detection.
In its CES 2023 press kit, Plastic Omnium continued to describe the collaboration as a system combining Greenerwave’s electromagnetic wave-control approach with Plastic Omnium’s ability to integrate it into plastic body parts. The intended customers were automakers, with the companies discussing sales of radar components or radar-equipped bumpers. Plastic Omnium’s press materials frame this as a development and integration proposition, not a consumer retrofit product.
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The bumper or other body panel does not itself interpret the road scene. In the companies’ description, it hosts antennas that work with a radar chipset and processing algorithms. The chipset generates radar waves, antennas distributed across the bodywork direct them, and receiving antennas collect echoes reflected from nearby objects. Algorithms then reconstruct the surroundings and categorize detections.
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- Generate the radar signal: A standard radar chipset produces a wave and guides it to several antennas mounted on the vehicle bodywork.
- Shape and direct the wave: The antennas act as smart electromagnetic reflectors, steering the wave toward useful areas around the vehicle.
- Collect reflections: Objects reflect some of the transmitted energy; receiving antennas capture the resulting echoes.
- Build a scene: Specialist algorithms process those echoes to estimate the environment and classify detected objects.
Plastic Omnium’s explanation is that spreading larger antennas across a bumper increases the effective aperture—the area available to transmit and receive radar energy—compared with a conventional arrangement of small antennas close to the radar chipset. The company also says its expertise in plastic, material layers, and paint can make bumpers transparent to radar waves. Those are the companies’ descriptions of the proposed design, not independently verified test findings.
What “4D imaging radar” means here
In Plastic Omnium’s CES 2023 description, “4D” means a three-dimensional view of surroundings plus speed information. The extra dimension is not a fourth spatial direction: it refers to how fast detected objects are moving in addition to where they are located.
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Greenerwave’s current radar page describes its approach as using reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RIS), also called metamaterial antennas, alongside beamforming and beam steering. Its technology page describes RIS controlled by physics-inspired algorithms, with simpler components and some complexity shifted from hardware to software. These are vendor descriptions of the technology and its intended benefits.
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Plastic Omnium’s 2021 announcement gave a target range of up to 300 metres and claimed resolution ten times higher than “current radars.” It offered distinguishing a pedestrian from a motorcyclist as an example of the intended improvement. The same announcement expected first prototypes in 2022 and said the radar was intended to advance vehicle obstacle detection by 2025. These figures and milestones are company claims and plans from 2021, not verified current specifications or proof of deployment.
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The sources available here do not provide an independent test dataset or neutral head-to-head comparison with conventional automotive radar. The aperture, placement, and performance advantages should therefore be understood as the rationale and claims behind the proposed system, rather than established comparative results.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Has the radar entered production?
The public record described here establishes the 2021 partnership announcement and Plastic Omnium’s continued explanation of the project in its CES 2023 press kit. Greenerwave’s current radar page lists automotive onboard radar as a market, but that does not establish that this specific Greenerwave–Plastic Omnium body-panel project was selected by an automaker or fitted to a production vehicle.
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Greenerwave’s press archive contains later announcements in other fields through July 2026, but it does not confirm this automotive project’s production status. The sources do not establish whether the 2025 target was met, whether an original-equipment manufacturer selected the system, or whether any vehicle entered production with it.
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