IWR6843AOPEVM: Get Raw Data Without Additional Hardware

Daniel Abdoue

Part Number: IWR6843AOPEVM
Other Parts Discussed in Thread: IWR6843AOP, MMWAVEICBOOST

Hello,

I am wondering if it is possible to get raw data from the IWR6843AOPEVM without having to use any additional hardware besides the card itself. I essentially just want to access the ADC buffer and then perform my own processing on that raw data from that buffer.

If we could do this by debugging a project in CCS while it is running on the card, just getting the value stored in the ADC buffer variable, that would also work. If this is possible, any guidance on how to do this or where to look to learn how to do this would be greatly appreciated.

Anyway that I could access the stream of data in the ADC buffer is essentially what I am looking for.

Thank you

over 3 years ago

0 Ishita Kochar over 3 years ago

TI__Mastermind 31680 points

Hello Daniel,

IWR6843AOP is a complete evaluation board in itself. To evaluate the performance of the device you can flash it with the example SDK application codes and connect on USB to PC GUI or visualizer and observe the results.

However, In order to get the raw ADC data out of the ADC buffer of the mmWave device, you would need a capture card like DCA1000 (or any other similar device) which captures the raw data over the LVDS interface of the device.

For more information you can refer to our FAQ page : https://e2e.ti.com/support/sensors-group/sensors/f/sensors-forum/856054/faq-raw-adc-data-capture-from-mmwave-sensor

Hope this helps you get the required information.

Regards,

Ishita

0 Daniel Abdoue over 3 years ago in reply to Ishita Kochar

Prodigy 30 points

Hello Ishita,

Thank you for your response. Would it not be possible however to simply not perform any processing on the ADC buffer, essentially passing in the values in the ADC buffer as the data that the user application reads, rather than point cloud data for example in the OOB demo.

Best,

Daniel

0 Ishita Kochar over 3 years ago in reply to Daniel Abdoue

TI__Mastermind 31680 points

Hello Daniel,

Sorry, I'm a little confused with your concern. Would it be possible for you to rephrase it? Are you stating to pass the data from the ADC buffer to the relevant L3 memories without having processing it/or performing any computation?

The raw data can only be sent out using the LVDS lanes and that too only from the ADC Buffer, and in that case you would need a DCA1000 or similar capture card.

Regards,

Ishita

0 Daniel Abdoue over 3 years ago in reply to Ishita Kochar

Prodigy 30 points

Hello ishita,

The raw data is being collected at some point and stored in a variable. There should therefore be a way to access the contents of that variable, since that variable is being used elsewhere in the demos of the board. If it is being used, then it should mean that it can be accessed. Why would you need additional hardware for that. I know that the raw data is being sent over LVDS, but that raw data is also being used elsewhere, where that data is then transmitted over UART, so the data should be technically accessible. I was just wondering what specifically is preventing accessing this variable directly through UART.

Thank you,

Daniel

+1 Jitendra Gupta over 3 years ago in reply to Daniel Abdoue

TI__Guru 69960 points

Hi Daniel,

AWR device generates ADC data at much higher speed (based on the device configuration), which requires multi hundred mbps speed to stream this data to PC from device without any drop or overwrite.

UART or any other interface except LVDS will not match this required speed to stream ADC data in realtime.

However, you can read single chirp or frame data at time where you need to configure device to generate only 1 frame (with limited chirp configure) and each chirp data from ADC buffer is being copied to L3 memory (within max size of L3 memory). Then later you can connect CCS to take memory dump of L3 to PC and further process it. Or use UART to stream this data (will take long time to copy).

You can use C:\ti\mmwave_sdk_03_05_00_04\packages\ti\drivers\test\mem_capture application from mmWave SDK which capture ADC buffer data to device memory. Please modify it as per your need.

Thanks & Regards,

Jitendra

0 Daniel Abdoue over 3 years ago in reply to Jitendra Gupta

Prodigy 30 points

Hi Jitendra,

Thank you so much for your response. I have a couple of IWR6843AOPEVM devices. Would it be best to purchase the MMWAVEICBOOST or just an XDS110 module so that I can use CCS to get the values in the L3 memory. If I can debug multiple devices at the same time, that would be ideal since I have limited funding, but it's not necessary.

Thank you,

Daniel

0 Ishita Kochar over 3 years ago in reply to Daniel Abdoue

TI__Mastermind 31680 points

Hello Daniel,

Sorry for the delay in response.

The MMWAVEICBOOST I would recommend, because in addition to the access to the XDS110 debugger, this EVM has a launchpad compatible headers underneath, which can help you get access to the pins on the mmWave device as well. Overall, if you are developing the ability to debug both SW and HW is key, so I would say this is a must have.

Supporting threads :

https://e2e.ti.com/support/sensors-group/sensors/f/sensors-forum/1087667/iwr6843aopevm-debug-code-from-device-without-additional-hardware

https://e2e.ti.com/support/sensors-group/sensors/f/sensors-forum/1037712/iwr6843aopevm-iwr6843aopevm-which-additional-boards-required

Regards,

Ishita