AWR1443BOOST: AWR1443BOOST not working with 3TX/4RX option on mmWave Demo Visualizer website

We contacted our TI FAE and it was recommended that we post this question to the forum.

Summary: We received an AWR1443BOOST demo board from TI recently and are trying to evaluate its capabilities. The board seems nominally functional, in that we can communicate with it over UART, and use UniFlash to program.  Using the mmWave Demo Visualizer, the board seems to function normally when in 1TX/1RX or 1TX/2RX modes and can see normal config / response in the debug window.  But when trying to use higher-level functionality, especially the 3TX/4TX "3D" mode, the config / response hangs at the sensorStart command and is non-functional until power cycle.

Version information: 

Tested with out-of-the-box version:

Platform          : xWR14xx
mmWave SDK Version: 01.00.00.04
RF H/W Version    : 02.00
RF F/W Version    : 01.07.00.04.17.04.19

Tested with SDK v1.2 flashed with xwr14xx_mmw_demo_mss.bin provided in SDK 01.02.00.05 from TI download website.

Platform          : xWR14xx
mmWave SDK Version: 01.02.00.05
RF H/W Version    : 02.00
RF F/W Version    : 02.00.00.15.18.01.11

Using the mmWave Demo Visualizer web application to test:

https://dev.ti.com/gallery/view/mmwave/mmWave_Demo_Visualizer/ver/2.0.0/

Details:

We are able to communicate with the device over USB via the Visualizer app. If we manually configure the system to "2Rx,1Tx(60deg)" mode, the configuration is successful, the "sensorStart" command receives a "Done" appropriately, and we can move to the Plot tab and see data.

If we try to use any of the 2d or 3d profiles, or configure manually with "4Rx,3Tx(15 deg + Elevation)" mode, the configuration appears to be successful ("Done" is received for all commands issued to the AWR1443BOOST), but the "sensorStart" command hangs, no "Done" is received, and there is no data available on the Plot tab.  See the screenshots below of the configuration commands / responses, and the plot tab results.

However, when we try to either use the default "4Rx,3Tx(15 deg + Elevation)" mode from the Demo Visualizer drop-down, or load the file "profile_3d.cfg from the SDK v1.2 at this location:

C:\ti\mmwave_sdk_01_02_00_05\packages\ti\demo\xwr14xx\mmw\profiles\profile_3d.cfg

Then the configuration appears to be successful ("Done" is received for all commands issued to the AWR1443BOOST), but the "sensorStart" command hangs, no "Done" is received, and there is no data available on the Plot tab.  The system hangs after sending the sensorStart command (there is no response of "Done") and the device is non-responsive on either UART.  See the screenshot below.

This result also occurs with any of the other .cfg files in this folder, as well as manually programming to any of the 4Rx modes in the Visualizer.

We downloaded the SDK v2.0 but there does not appear to be any newer support for the AWR1443 in that SDK, which is why I use the v1.2.  The AWR1443 has 4Rx and 3Tx so we would assume that the demo firmware would support this.  But does it, out of the box?

Other forum members appear to be using the AWR1443BOOST to test 3D / elevation functionality, so we are wondering if there may be something that we are missing.

Please advise. Additional information available upon request.

This architecture of the Sensor Fusion subsection has already been established and implemented in the current generation of hardware.

If there are any additional hardware modifications needed for future revisions of the Security Monitoring system, those modifications should be outlined here.