IWR6843AOPEVM: achieving better radar resolution

Mateusz Tomala

Part Number: IWR6843AOPEVM

Hello,

Me and my team are trying to monitor small objects' movement using IWR6843OPEVM. We are aiming for less than 1cm resolution.

Is it possible to measure that using this board: IWR6843AOPEVM, because using mmWaveDemo_Visualizer allows only 0.039m precision.

Is it somehow possible to get even smaller (approximately 0.01m) resolution? Or is there any other radar than would allow us to measure such small movement.

Thank you for your support!

over 1 year ago

0 Nathan Block over 1 year ago

TI__Mastermind 37805 points

Hi,

You can play with the configuration in greater detail in the mmwave sensing estimator tool, but I would warn you that 1 cm of resolution would require about 16 GHz of bandwidth, which TI devices cannot support. (see Article : https://www.ti.com/lit/wp/spyy005a/spyy005a.pdf)

MMWave Sensing Estimator Tool : https://dev.ti.com/gallery/view/mmwave/mmWaveSensingEstimator/ver/2.3.0/

Best,

Nate

0 Mateusz Tomala over 1 year ago in reply to Nathan Block

Prodigy 20 points

Hello Nathan,

Thank you for your reply! You said that TI devices do not support that kind of resolution, yet in the first article you sent me, there is said that "An mmWave system operating at 76–81 GHz (with a corresponding wavelength of about 4 mm), will have the ability to detect movements that are as small as a fraction of a millimeter."

So my question is whether there are any devices on a stock that are capable of detection these changes?

Once again thank you for your support

0 Nathan Block over 1 year ago in reply to Mateusz Tomala

TI__Mastermind 37805 points

Hi,

That is likely in reference to the velocity detection capabilities of the device.

Range resolution refers to the ability to distinguish multiple items placed at different ranges from one another. However, the mmwave sensors can detect movements (velocities) that are much smaller than the range resolution. Since velocity is detected by a change of phase within a single range bin, the interchirp time and the number of chirps will affect the amount of movement needed to detect a velocity (change in phase over time), and this can be much much smaller.

Best,

Nate

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IWR6843AOPEVM: achieving better radar resolution