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Does TI radar MMIC supports FSK,LMFSK,triangle wave?

Now TI radar MMIC  supports FAST CHIRP  waveform, does it supports other radar waveform such as FSK,LMFSK,or triangle wave? As we known, each waveform has its own advantages or disadvantages, FAST CHIRP waveform is not a panacea.

  • Hello Yang,
    we are looking into your query. We will get back to you on this.

    Regards,
    Vivek
  • Hello Tianxi, 

    The short answer is no. TI's AWR1xxx devices only support fast FMCW operation.

    However, there are ways to mimic FSK, LMFSK, and 'triangle waveform patterns' using multiple chirps. For example, you can configure a sequence of chirps, each with 'zero' slope, Each chirp in this sequence can have a different starting frequency. In this way, you'd have mimicked a FSK radar system. If the starting frequencies are linearly increasing, you'd have mimicked a LMFSK radar system. For 'triangle waveform pattern', you can have two chirps, one with a positive slope, and one with a negative slope. 

    But since the AWR1xxx wasn't designed for these waveforms, the captured ADC data would have some issues. This is because of some of the design chocies for AWR1xxx, like :

    1. Finite 'Idle time' between chirps. There would be a short (~ a few us) 'idle time' between successive chirps as the synthesizer settles to the new frequency. This would eat into the adc-sampling time. 

    2. The HPF in the AWR1XXX IF is not designed for 'low slopes'. (Recall that the slope is directly proportional to the 'beat' frequency, and the HPF attenuates frequencies within its stop band). The minimum HPF corner frequency is ~ 350 Khz, whereas for a slow FMCW system (like a 'triangle waveform'  or LMFSK system), the Ideal HPF corner frequency would be less than 10Khz. 

    Regards,

    Anil