IWR6843ISK: Increase the range in Sense and Direct HVAC Control demo .cfg file

Hello

Wonder if  you have a chance to look at the mmWave FMCW equations and FMCW basic training on TI's training site:

It will  help you understand the things that play a role in detection:

Chrip parameters

Antenna Specificatons

Tx.Rx  power gains.

Hope that helps you get started on the right directions - please lets us know if you have device, HW specific questions which are not called out in the product collateral.

Thank you,

Vaibhav

Hi,

Earlier when there was a question asked about the area scanner demo I was told that the maximum range for the area scanner is 20 meters and I might be at the edge of what the sensor antenna can detect. So I wanted to specifically know if that's only in the case of AOP? If I can increase the range bins in the heatmapGenCfg for ISK to see even beyond 20 meters? In the same way wanted to know is there a limitation of the range in the Sense and Direct HVAC Control demo?

Regards,

Divya Teja Settimali

HI, there:

We have demo that can detect moving people in about 50meters.  If you are looking for long range detection for moving object, you can switch to long range people counting demo.   The maximum range is highly depend on the chirp configuration, target RCS, and antenna. 

Can you explain what you are trying to achieve for your application?  So I can suggest the best demo for you to start with.

Best,

Zigang

Hi Zigang,

Thank you for the email. I have fine tuned both the .cfg files on the area scanner and long range on ISK for a range of 16 m. In long range .cfg I can see the target up to 16 m but the data is not accurate. For instance if a known target is moving in the straight line the values on the X and Y axis are not accurate enough. In area scanner .cfg I see accurate data up to 16 m. For example if a known target is moving in the straight line the values on the X and Y axis are accurate to further use this data as an input to another process. I have gone through the documents of the Sense and Direct HVAC Control demo and I see it is designed for the indoor application but I'm interested in outdoor environment as a security application. In the demo the objects like fans, plants, blinds.,etc are classified as non-human. I want to add more objects to the non-human category like metal, rain (movement from the water dripping), vehicles a car and truck for example. I'm interested only in human class and I see it is already defined. Anything other than human should be a non-human for the application but for 16 m. Could you help me out there? Also I'm interested in knowing or testing the theory where with snr value of water at 1m and the human at 16m and depending on this can I eliminate rain so that it isn't a problem anymore? I'm looking forward to hear from you. 

Regards,

Divya Teja Settimali

HI, there:

The sense and Direct HVAC Control demo is trying to track a person standing very still, that is why it needs very fine Doppler resolution, and the number of chirp in one frame is set very large because of that.   And it has trying to have good range resolution, that is why it cannot detect very far range due to memory limitation.  In addition, this demo also estimate azimuth angle, and not give elevation information.   In general, it may not be the perfect demo for your use case.

So if area scanner works for you, then you can stay with area scanner and just reduce the frequency slope setting in profileCfg, => reduce the bandwidth => increase range resolution => larger max range.   For more detailed information on chirp design, you can check the following e2e thread: https://e2e.ti.com/support/sensors-group/sensors/f/sensors-forum/1011679/iwr6843aop-how-to-proceed-in-designing-testing-chirps

Regarding adding the classification, there should be some documentation inside Direct HVAC control demo.   IF you need more than that, please submit a new e2e thread, so our expert on that demo can help you directly.

Best,

Zigang