In both natural and man-made disasters, search and rescue teams often operate under dangerous conditions, which can lead to additional casualties. In large-scale disasters, the need to quickly locate survivors trapped under debris presents a significant challenge, especially when traditional sensing methods are limited by visibility and environmental conditions. Among the technologies that can assist human detection in search and rescue, ground penetrating radar (GPR) has the ability to detect people buried or trapped under debris. This project will focus on the design of a custom voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) tailored for GPR radar operation in search and rescue applications. The VCO will be designed and optimized for wide bandwidth and low power operation. This design will be implemented as an integrated circuit (IC) and carried through the full design flow, from schematic design to tape-out in TSMC 65 nm technology. This work will demonstrate how application-driven circuit design can enable more compact and efficient radar systems for search-and-rescue applications.

I am participating in SuperUROP because I want to gain more experience in electronics, circuit design, and IC layout while working on a practical and impactful application. Through SuperUROP, I hope to conduct research with stronger support and guidance, and publish a paper that contributes to this field.