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IWR6843AOP: adjust low level settings

Ben Genereaux
Intellectual 1040 points
Part Number: IWR6843AOP

Hi team,

Our customer is testing for FCC compliance with the IWR6843AOP embedded in their product. The device main processor and mmWave are connected directly over the two UARTs. The device main processor is flashing the firmware and configuring the mmWave via UART on startup.

Is there a headless (=no display) alternative to the mmWave studio that could directly run on the device's main processor (it's running Linux)? We don't have the 60-pin connector available that is mentioned in the regulatory document: https://www.ti.com/lit/an/spracp3c/spracp3c.pdf 

We are looking to easily control low level settings like TX power and frequency.

Thanks,
Ben

  • 0
    TI__Expert 6880 points

    Hi Ben,

    Thanks for your question. I will check and get back by 7/14

    Regards,

    Abhishek

  • 0 in reply to Abhishek Karkisaval
    TI__Intellectual 1040 points

    Hi Abhishek,

    Thanks for working on this. We are looking into steps suggested by this article (https://www.ti.com/lit/an/swra753/swra753.pdf), as well as breaking out the UARTs to connect to a PC.

    Please let me know if you have any other suggestions.

    Thanks,
    Ben

  • 0 in reply to Ben Genereaux
    TI__Expert 6880 points

    Hi Ben, 

    With mmWAVE Studio firmware, you can send API's through SPI. However, UART based API is not supported.

    As you have 2 UARTs connected, for FCC compliance, you can control power, frequency using the profileCfg configuration.

    It allows you to select the starting frequency and bandwidth. Tx Backoff in the configuration lets you control the power.

    The appnote that you mentioned above would be the correct reference document for FCC certification

    Regards,

    Abhishek

  • 0 in reply to Abhishek Karkisaval
    TI__Intellectual 1040 points

    Hi Abhishek,

    Based on the mmWave Studio GUI User Guide it seems like an FTDI chip is used on the LaunchPad to send API over UART?

    "mmWaveStudio GUI utilizes C DLL and a set of API's to communicate from the GUI to the device through FTDI FT4232H device. The FT4232H is a USB 2.0 Hi-Speed (480 Mb/s) to UART IC."

    Can you comment on if the following process should work to interface with the device. We are having trouble connecting the CLI_CFG and DATA ports at the same time. We are running the chip in our system, with the UART ports broken out to FTDI cables (Config TX/RX, Data just RX).

    Generally, the steps we are taking are:

    1. Boot our device as usual, the radar chip will be programmed with our application and receive a config file. This seems to be successful, we can see data coming in.
    2. Stop sending signals from our device.
    3. Connect the FTDI cable to our machine using the mmWave Demo Visualizer.

    When we take these steps, DATA is connected, but CFG is not. In addition to this connection issue we are not seeing any data being plotted on the Plots tab. When we attempt to send a config, nothing happens. We see no messages in the console.

    Should the TI tool be able to connect just over these two UART ports from our own custom board? The tool and documentation is all in the context of using a dev board.

    Is there a TI tool to program application code instead of just config?

    Might an SOP signal need to be changed?

    Might the TI tool need to transmit on the data UART instead of just receive?

    Is connecting both CFG and DATA necessary to see plots? If not, why aren't we seeing any plots?

    Thanks,
    Ben

  • 0 in reply to Ben Genereaux
    TI__Expert 6880 points

    Hi Ben,

    Launchpad communicates with mmWave Studio GUI using RS232 and SPI. Port 1 of FTDI FT4232H acts as SPI, while the port 3 acts as RS232.

    API's from mmWave Studio are sent over port 1 as SPI communication. There is no UART involved here

    Demo Visualizer needs 2 COM ports, 1 for sending the configuration and another for receiving the point cloud data over the Data port

    You can modify the demo to program the CFG such that you need not send the CFG through the UART. In that case, you may need to extract the data through the UART log and the visualizer may not work in this case

    Demo visualizer is designed such that some of the cfg parameters that are transmitted is used to arrange plots, that is the reason you will not see the plots pop up without the cfg being sent when your hardware is connected.

    You can try another visualizer in radar toolbox which might be helpful to you in this context. 

    https://www.ti.com/tool/download/RADAR-TOOLBOX/1.20.00.11 

    You can use the industrial visualizer at radar_toolbox_1_20_00_11\tools\visualizers\Industrial_Visualizer and select 6843 as the device and OOB as the demo and use the button "Start without send Configuration" in the Configuration section

    Regards,

    Abhishek