IWR6843: Creating custom waveform configuration files

HI, 

The other e2e thread customer was able to get it working on their side. Were you able to get the original chirp configuration working first?    Is this error only happens to your modified chirp configuration?  

Best,

Zigang

Using the provided chirp configuration and the hardware setup, I can get it to work.
however, in the DCA config file, when I change the captureStopMode to "fames" instead of bytes, I get the following error:

Record stopping using number of frames is valid only in raw mode. [error -4064]


Using my custom configuration parameters, I just get an error -1 as shown above. The error code gives no information. 

I am using the same mmw_demo image.

Thanks

1) That is right.  CaptureStopMode does not support frames at this time.

You can use "bytes"

or you can use "infinite" and then rely on the capture stop command to stop the capture.

DCA1000EVM_CLI_Control.exe stop_record  xxx.json

2) Regarding sensor configuration, Is your modified configuration run on regular visualizer?  and only gives error when you do raw data capture?  You need to first make sure the modified configuration runs on visualizer.

Best,

Zigang

So your modified configuration file runs well on visualizer, but just did not run well when sending through MATLAB function sencCfg.  Can you send me your modified configuration to check?  Can you please make sure that you send the DCA1000 CLI command to reset the radar sensor?

Best,

Zigang

Attached! I am resetting the radar sensor just as stated in the other thread.

chirp1_test.cfg

Hi, 

You have large number of chirps.  Are you having total 1000 chirps in one frame?  Can you try to reduce the number of chirps from 256 down to something like total 64 or less and try again?  I doubt this configuration can run in the SDK visualizer.  We have a limitation of radar cube size.

chirpCfg 0 255 0 0 0 0 0 4
frameCfg 0 255 4 100 900 1 0

Best,

Zigang

Can raw data run in the SDK visualizer? I was under the assumption that it won't work.
This waveform works on mmWaveStudio, not the visualizer.

Changing the number of chirps to less than 64 produces the same error.  Is there an image where I can stream raw data and run 256 chirps?

Thanks!

Hi Zigang,

I am not sure I understand your statement correctly.

Right now you don't have any binary that supports LVDS streaming of raw data for the visualizer. But if we want to bypass the visualizer, the mmw_demo binary allows streaming of LVDS raw data through ethernet. 

The problem with mmw_demo binary is that there are memory limitations so we cant have too many chirps.

You are suggesting that we modify the SDK code for mmw_demo to eliminate the post processing and memory allocation allowing us no memory limitation and therefore, 256 chirps.

Are there any images that allow LVDS streaming of raw data if we bypass the visualizer?

Thanks!

Got it.
Its very interesting. I took your earlier suggestion of trying to find an image with LVDS streaming and landed upon: 3D_People_count_68xx_demo.bin from industrial_toolbox_4.3.2 which should support sdk 3.4 but the output seems to suggest otherwise:

I only used 16 chirps as you recommended but seems that is not the issue. Any thoughts?

mmwDemo:/>guiMonitor -1 1 1 1 0 0 1
'guiMonitor' is not recognized as a CLI command
Sending configuration to XWR1xxx sensor_stop.cfg ...
sensorStop

sensorStop
Ignored: Sensor is already stopped

Done
 
Start Record command : Success 
Sending configuration to XWR1xxx sensor_restart.cfg ...
sensorStart
sensorStart
Debug: Init Calibration Status = 0x1e

Error -1
 
Stop Record command : Success 

Thanks!

Hi Zigang,

Where/how can I find information on the memory limitations for the 68xx_mmw_demo.bin?

Thanks!

Hi Zigang,

Is there anyway to bypass the L3 memory? All we want to do is stream raw data through the DCA1000EVM onto the PC, which we could do in the AWR1243 without any issues.

I find it confusing how there was no memory limitation on the AWR1243 but there is for the IWR6843 if we just want to stream data instead of storing data.

Thanks!

Ok. So you are saying that there is no way to bypass all the processing by making a change in the configuration file, you have to do it through the code itself correct?

Thanks!

Thank you. The reason why I was comparing to AWR1243 was because AWR1243 does not do any on chip processing. It just sends raw data.
In this case with the IWR6843ISK, we also want to skip the on chip processing and send raw data. Therefore, it is confusing to me for 2 reasons:

1. I believe AWR1243 transmits one chirp at a time. If this is the case in IWR6843 as well, then why is memory an issue? In other words, why we are going through the L3 memory when we just want to transmit one chirp at a time and send raw data to PC without any storage of data?