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AWR1642: Choosing a board for software development

Part Number: AWR1642
Other Parts Discussed in Thread: AWR1243, IWR1642, IWR1642BOOST

We are an undergraduate student team working to develop a wearable radar device.  To do this we need to be able to identify and track objects using their position and velocity, so we are looking for a radar board which uses FMCW radar.  The algorithm will be developed in Matlab but would also like to be able to create a stand alone product able to do all calculations onboard an additional microcontroller (which would be later implemented, and connected to the radar board).  We are looking for a board from which we can continuously pull raw data.   
Questions:
  1. What are the differences between the eval boards for AWR1642, AWR1643, AWR1243 as it relates to our project?
  2. Which one best supports testing with connection to a computer as well as connection to a microcontroller?
  3. Do all of the boards connect to Matlab? and is there documentation for that? 
  4. Do we need to buy the mmWave devpack to be able to connect to Matlab or a microcontroller? 
  5. Do we have to buy a separate MCU to work with this board/ communicate with a computer?
  6. Do we need to use mmWave Studio to modify parameters on the eval board?

Thank you,


Benjamin
  • Hi

    I think that the best platform for your project is the IWR1642BOOST board. The IWR1642 includes a DSP where you can implement your algorithm.

    The mmWave SDK that comes with the board is free and includes a demo that communicates through the UART with a GUI. It is possible to use a Matlab GUI

    www.ti.com/.../mmwave-sdk

    You will not need to buy the mmWave devpack for this project. mmWave Studio should not be used for this project. Please read the mmWave SDK userguide to understand how the device is configured.

    There are additional mmWave resources available on the TI Resource Explorer

    http://dev.ti.com/tirex/#/

    Thank you
    Cesar