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Best Sensor for time-of-flight distance calculation in mmWave spectrum?

Other Parts Discussed in Thread: IWR6843, AWR1642, AWR1843, OPT3101, OPT8320, OPT8241, OPT9221

I'm looking for a way to setup two mmWave (24ghz+) transceivers to measure the distance between the two devices. 

Do you have a product suggestion that will get me started? 

I would care most about accuracy of measurement, secondly range, and I probably don't care too much about power or other restrictions. 

  • Hi Stephen,

    Thank you for contacting us. I am transferring to the Radar group to help you with the request.

    Regards

    Sharath

  • Hi Stephen,

    You can use mmwave sensor, there are two frequency-based sensor 77GHz (AWR1642 or AWR1843) and 60GHz (IWR6843) which you can use for this purpose.

    However to measure distance b/w the sensor you need to implement your own algo where second sensor reply with transmitting a signal as soon as it receives a signal from the first senor; thus at first sensor, you can calculate total timing b/w send-to-receive signal and calculate the distance.

    This sensor comes with mmwave SDK which provides all the documentation to start for a new user.

    Regards,

    Jitendra

  • Jitendra,

    The development board for 77ghz looks great.  It appears this device is intended for bounce back.  If you had two of these, could you perform the round trip you described previously?

    Also, what is the expected range (in meters) at full power? 

    Thanks!

  • Hi Stephen,

    Expected range is ~100 meters but most industrial applications use the sensor at 10m or less.

    Is the round trip method necessary for your application? A single mmWave sensor can provide distance of a variety of objects in a scene.

    Do you have a diagram for your application? I'd like to understand more before we proceed.

    Cheers,

    Akash

  • Akash,

    My goal would be to perform triangulation of a small device using 4 of these 2-transceiver setups.  The round-trip method means the devices don't have to be directly pointed at each other and that there's no false positives. 

    Do you have any thoughts on this being possible with any of your devices?

    Thanks!

  • Hi Stephen,

    I would not recommend mmWave Sensors for this application as a single sensor has very good detection of all objects in a scene with a high degree of accuracy and also high precision to eliminate both false positives and negatives.

    Perhaps TI's Time of Flight Sensors might be of use to you? To get in touch with an expert please create a new thread with one of the part numbers listed below:

    OPT3101

    OPT8320

    OPT8241

    OPT9221

    An expert from their team should be able to point you in the right direction.

    Cheers,

    Akash