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AWR2243BOOST: AWR 2243 Boost First Steps

Rodrigo Torres
Prodigy 25 points
Part Number: AWR2243BOOST
Other Parts Discussed in Thread: AWR2243, , DCA1000EVM, AWR1243, AWR1642, AWR1843

Hello

I have acquired an AWR2243 Boost radar and I am struggling a lot to make it work.
I have tried to use the mmWave Demo Visualizer, but with no success. The AWR2243 User Guide says that mmWave Demo Visualizer is compatible with AWR2243Boost, however it seems to be not true (as discussed here: https://e2e.ti.com/support/sensors/f/1023/p/907885/3355655?tisearch=e2e-sitesearch&keymatch=AWR2243%20demo%20visualizer#3355655

Can somebody help me? Does anyone has some tutorial or first steps document on how to use it?

I do not have the DCA 1000 module. Does anyone know how to use the radar without this or other special module?

Thanks in advance,

Rodrigo 

  • 0
    TI__Mastermind 31680 points

    Hello Rodrigo,

    As mentioned in your quoted thread, AWR2243 device is a sensor only device and not programmable. It must be used together with a host processor (FPGA, DCA1000, or any other) for any evaluation purposes.

    Let us know if you need any further information.

    Regards,

    Ishita

     

  • 0 in reply to Ishita Kochar
    Prodigy 25 points

    Hi Ishita

    How are you?

    Thank you very much for your reply.
    I would like to understand more how the Radar communicates with the DCA1000 or other boards. Can you help me?

    I understood that the AWR2243 communicates with DCA1000 by LVDS. Is it right?

    However, I have noticed that the AWR2243 Boost has some termination pins. It has RS232TX and RX, SPI ports and the CAN port. I attached the oscilloscope in the TX-RX port and saw a continuous voltage. What are those ports used for? Can I communicate with them?

    For now, I just would like to see some data. I do not want to program the radar or do more complicated stuff

    Kind regards,

    Rodrigo

  • 0 in reply to Rodrigo Torres
    TI__Guru 69960 points

    Hello Rodrigo,

    I would suggest you to follow these links for a selection of mmwave sensor variants

    https://e2e.ti.com/support/sensors/f/1023/t/907797

    As AWR2243 is RF front end only device, AWR2243 has CSI-2 and LVDS interface to stream out raw ADC data to external processor. On board FGPA of DCA1000EVM listens that data over LVDS and streams out to PC over ethernet. Refer this DCA1000 user guide-

    https://software-dl.ti.com/ra-processors/esd/MMWAVE-STUDIO/latest/exports/DCA1000_Quick_Start_Guide.pdf

    AWR2243 device can be controlled or communicated over only SPI or I2C where External processor can send configuration command over these interface to configure the rf front end and later device (at frame trigger) will stream out RAW ADC data over LVDS/CSI-2 (based on configuration).

    RS232 Tx/Rx pins are used by mmWave Studio only in SOP-2 mode. 

    https://e2e.ti.com/support/sensors/f/1023/p/856058/3419561#3419561

    On AWR2243BOOST, CAN interface is not being used. Most of mmwave sensor variants follow almost same EVM HW schematic, because of that you see some unused interface on AWR2243BOOST or other EVMs.

    As mentioned in above replies, AWR1243/AWR2243 are RF front end board only. So these devices need to be configure by external entity like mmWave Studio (https://www.ti.com/tool/MMWAVE-STUDIO : MMWAVE-STUDIO-2G)

    But to capture the data you need to have DCA1000EVM or you need to have your own external processor or FPGA which has LVDS or CSI-2 interface to capture this data and process it.

    On another hand other device variants like AWR1642/AWR1843 can be programmed with custom application (mmw demo from mmwave SDK) and it process the ADC data internally on DSP/HWA and sends out the final object list as result, which can be plot on mmWave Demo Visualizer tool. With these device you don't need to much complicated stuff to get view the result during out of box.

     

    Regards,

    Jitendra