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IWR1642BOOST: Conformence between Sensing Estimator design and mmWave Studio Post Processing capabilities

c64
Intellectual 480 points
Part Number: IWR1642BOOST
Other Parts Discussed in Thread: MMWAVE-STUDIO

Hi,

I'm using the IWR1642BOOST ES2.0 together with the DCA1000 for raw data capturing. I really like the Post Processing tool in mmWave Studio, cause it gives a fast feedback (e.g. when doing field tests) of the performance of a certain setting. In the mmWave Sensing Estimator's user guide it says "After it is designed here, the chirp can be configured on the device through the use of mmWave SDK. Please note that that these parameters only specify the front-end and additional processing may be required to achieve the scene parameters." For my case, so far, I'm only using the IWR1642BOOST to capture raw data, so the chip itself doesn't have to do any additional processing. In my application I would like to measure an object with a velocity around 200 k/h for as long of a distance the system can manage. In the Sensing Estimator I made this chirp:

I'm wondering, would the mmWave Studio Post Processing tool be able to display the data properly, concerning max velocity etc? (if not, what are out of bounds?) Or would I have to do the post processing myself? And if the mmWave Studio Post Processing tool is not capable of this, how do I know its limits? 

Thanks!

  • 0
    TI__Mastermind 30405 points
    Hello,

    While we have not tried this exact scenario, a valid Sensing Estimator generated configuration (i.e. it doesn't generate any errors in the estimator) should be a valid RF Front-End configuration and it should work in MMWAVE-STUDIO.

    Have you tried this scenario and come across any issues during post-processing?

    Regards
    -Nitin
  • 0 in reply to Nitin Sakhuja
    Intellectual 480 points

    Hi,

    I've tried that scenario, as well as quite a few others. My experience so far:

    1. When the sensing estimator gives an Idle Time of 2 us, that's usually not enough when I run the mmWave Studio for data collection (adjusting it to e.g. 4 us solves the problem. If I set it to 2 us it doesn't collect any data).

    2. The sensing estimator may report a number of ADC samples to be less than 64 samples, and then the mmWave Studio automatically corrects this to 64. If, at the same time, the sample rate is pretty much pushed to its limits, the "valid" scenario given by the sensing estimator is not realizable in the mmWave Studio.

    3. The sensing estimator may give a "valid" scenario where the number of chirp loops is greater than 255. The mmWave Studio corrects anything above 255 to 255.

  • 0 in reply to c64
    TI__Mastermind 30405 points

    Hello,

    1. The idle time provided by the Sensing Estimator is the minimum idle time from the RF front end perspective but it does not account for the time required for data transfer on the interface.

    2. The minimum number of ADC samples needs to be 64 as this is a RadarSS firmware requirement. This appears to be a bug in the Sensing Estimator and needs to be fixed. Thanks for bringing this to our notice. In the meantime, I would recommend tweaking your chirp parameters so that the number of samples is at least 64. Keeping everything else the same, the simplest way to do this is to increase the Max range to increase the number of ADC samples.

    3. This needs some explanation but is correct behavior. The Sensing Estimator generates the total number of chirps required to realize the frame configuration for your scenario. However, the total number of chirp loops for a single chirp cannot be more than 255 which is why MMWAVE-STUDIO limits the number of chirp loops to 255. You need to define more than one chirp and then loop on them in the frame config to realize the total number of chirp loops given by the Sensing Estimator. Please refer to this response for an example scenario involving more than 255 chirps: IWR1443: increase velocity and resolution on mmWave products

    Please mark this thread resolved if your question was answered.

    Regards

    -Nitin