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IWR6843ISK-ODS: MMWave Studio PostProc is not working properly

TI-CSC
Genius 13075 points
Part Number: IWR6843ISK-ODS
Other Parts Discussed in Thread: DCA1000EVM, IWR6843ISK, IWRL6432BOOST, MMWAVE-STUDIO, MMWAVE-SDK

Hello E2E Experts,

Good day.

I am currently working with the MMWave IWR6843ISK-ODS and the DCA1000EVM, and I am doing some experiments with them.

The Out Of Box Demo works without any problems as shown in the screenshot. I used the parameters from the "68xx Area Scanner" for this.
In the scenario, a person stands in front of the radar in a room with a distance of about 2 meters.

I have to do my experiments with various chirp parameters, which is easy to do with the MMWave Studio. Unfortunately, I get different results in the MMWave Studio application using PostProc than in the Out of Box demo in the same scenario as described above (See Screenshot below)

Problem: As soon as a person stands in front of the radar, instead of a central point, two symmetrical points are displayed, one on the left and one on the right of the actual point. But unfortunately never in the middle, where the person really stands. (See the screenshot).

I repeated the experiment in different environments and unfortunately always got the same wrog result. I got a similar wrong result in the Out Of Box application when I uploaded the firmware for the IWR6843ISK to my board instead of the firmware for the IWR6843ISK-ODS board.

Is it possible that I still have to change something in the mmWave Studio configuration? Unfortunately, I didn't find anything else in the documentation and the user guide.

Attached are my configurations for mmWave studio.

I would be very happy about an answer, because I can't work with the systems with the current result.

Regards,

CSC

  • 0
    TI__Mastermind 23347 points

    Hello CSC,

    The issue here is not with your setup or chirp configuration, but rather with mmWaveStudio itself. With the mmWave Industrial Visualizer you are able to give antenna pattern information via the three parameters "antGeometry0", "antGeometry1", and "antPhaseRot" in a configuration file (.cfg). Between our different EVMs are different antenna patterns so the calculations for point cloud location will be different between EVMs. ODS has a very different antenna pattern compared to other EVMs and mmWaveStudio does NOT have a place to input antenna pattern parameters. The tool is mostly for raw data, heat-maps, graphs, etc. The point cloud viewer in it is sort of tacked on and not super reliable. What the device is outputting via point cloud is actually what is seen in the Industrial Visualizer, so the sensor is properly functioning.

    Best Regards,

    Pedrhom Nafisi

  • 0 in reply to Pedrhom Nafisi
    TI__Genius 13075 points

    Hello Pedrhom,

    Good day,

    The customer's problem doesn't seem to be solvable because the feature of the software that I need for my work doesn't support my radar.

    They have bought two of these radar systems 2 months ago, which they cannot use now because I cannot write such software myself for reasons of time and money. Is there a chance to return the two radar systems and order two of the IWRL6432BOOST systems instead?

    Otherwise, our customer would have spent the money for nothing as unfortunately there is also no mention anywhere that the required feature is not supported for the radar purchased.

    Regards,

    CSC

  • 0 in reply to TI-CSC
    TI__Mastermind 23347 points

    Hello,

    The only part that does not work is the visualization of point cloud within that one tool (mmWaveStudio) and there are other tools such as the Industrial Visualizer which visualizes the point cloud perfectly. All the heatmaps, raw data collection, and other functions work properly and there is a second tool for point cloud. Is there a reason that this does not suffice? 

    Best Regards,

    Pedrhom

  • 0 in reply to Pedrhom Nafisi
    TI__Genius 13075 points

    Hello Pedrhom

    Many thanks for the answer.

    In my particular case, I want to experiment with different chirp parameters, mainly related to the angles of the objects with respect to the radar. That's why this feature in mmWave Studio is so important to me.

    In the applications for the Industrial Visualizer, I was not able to configure the parameters of the chirps in as much detail as in the mmWave Studio application. Also, it's important that I don't have live recordings, but the result, like in mmWave Studio, is a snapshot of a specific moment that can be triggered by the trigger for a specific number of frames.

    Or can I also display the data copied by mmWave Studio in the Industrial Visualizer application?

    I know my use case is very specific. Is there an application that allows this?

    I'd be happy to help.

    Regards,

    CSC

  • 0 in reply to TI-CSC
    TI__Mastermind 23347 points

    Hello,

    All commands from a tuning level and even almost all commands possible that is done in mmWaveStudio can be done outside of it. The mmWave SDK is what drives all functionalities, and so whether you are creating a .cfg file to tune the Radar or using mmWaveStudio's tabs change parameters, the knobs exist for both environments. The only thing that exists in practically only mmWaveStudio is raw ADC data capture. But if you look at the SensorConfig tab for example within mmWaveStudio, every single parameter there has a corresponding one in a .cfg file which is what is sent to visualizers such as the Industrial Visualizer. You can set the device to only run for X amount of frames and save all the data in a .dat file using the mmWave Demo Visualizer which is an in-browser visualizer.

    Best Regards,

    Pedrhom

  • 0 in reply to Pedrhom Nafisi
    TI__Genius 13075 points

    Hello Pedrhom,

    Good day.

    Finding a solution without mmWave Studio will cost some time, which I don't have. So the boards are useless right now. I think it is cheaper to buy new boards than pay someone with programming knowledge for finding a solution.

    I think it would be nice if someone could mention in the user guide, that the feature is not supported, because in this case, I would not have bought this product.

    In the description of the board, it says: "This kit is supported by mmWave tools and software, including mmWave Studio (MMWAVE-STUDIO) and the mmWave software development kit (MMWAVE-SDK)" which is not totally the case.

    For the benefit of future device users.

    Thank you for your support.

    Regards,

    CSC

  • 0 in reply to Pedrhom Nafisi
    Prodigy 20 points

    Hello Pedrhom,

    Does mmWave Studio support the antenna pattern of the IWR6843ISK EVM so that the point cloud is calculated correctly?

    Best regards,
    Florian

  • 0 in reply to Florian Kosterhon
    TI__Genius 17265 points

    Hi Florian,

    In general, as Pedrhom mentioned, the matlab scripts provided with mmWave Studio are examples. mmWave studio is a tool to capture raw ADC data, and its primary purpose is not to visualize this for you. Since this tool is intended for the capture of raw data, it is assumed that users will have some algorithm/radar background to do their own processing of the radar data. 

    If you are looking to visualize the data in real time with various chirp configurations, you likely should refer to our demos/examples located in the radar toolbox, select the one most similar to your application, and try to make your changes to their configurations. These demos have premade processing chains and visualizers included. 

    Let me know if there are further questions.

    Best Regards,
    Alec