BOSTON, February 11, 2021 – Aura Intelligent Systems, a Boston based startup developing a 4-dimensional imaging radar was awarded a competitive Phase I grant from the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program. The grant will be used to advance the development of the breakthrough imaging radar technology. 

Jungah Lee, Founder, and CEO of Aura Intelligent Systems says, “Existing radars developed for defense applications are vulnerable to interference and jamming and do not scale for the massive deployment in congested urban environments. Aura’s digital imaging radar addresses many of the limitations that plague existing radar technology, by providing promising solutions that benefit from interference resilience and scalability in a unified platform for connectivity and sensing. This enables compelling solutions for unmanned traffic management and autonomous vehicles, solving the critical issues they are faced with.”

According to David Munson, President of Rochester Institute of Technology and Aura’s technology board, “More broadly, by bringing sensing and communication into a unified framework, Aura’s technology can be a building block for the surveillance and transportation industries. Imaging radars are poised to see widespread adoption in the automotive, aerospace, industrial, and agriculture communities. Having the capability to embed sensing and communication on a scalable 5G-based hardware platform is an advantage.”

“NSF is proud to support the technology of the future by thinking beyond incremental developments and funding the most creative, impactful ideas across all markets and areas of science and engineering,” said Andrea Belz, Division Director of the Division of Industrial Innovation and Partnerships at NSF.

Aura is led by veterans in the wireless industry and automotive industry. Aura’s technology is backed by multiple granted and pending patents.