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AWR1243: Tx scanning for cascaded master-slave-configuration

Henric @ S_radar
Prodigy 180 points
Part Number: AWR1243
Other Parts Discussed in Thread: MMWCAS-RF-EVM

Hi TI
Hope you can help us settle an issue we have with our radar based on your XA1243FPBGABL chip.
The radar is designed using two of the mentioned chip in a cascaded master-slave-configuration.
I'm attaching a block diagram, but as you can see it follows SWRA574B.

We are not performing MIMO or beamforming with our Tx-antennas, however we would like to do a Tx-scanning scenario.
Due to antenna design and layout issues on the board we could only fit out Tx antenna configuration as you can see in the block diagram, i.e. the first antenna is attached to master Tx1-pin, the second antenna to slave Tx2-pin and the third antenna to slave Tx3-pin.

The second slide show our wanted Tx-scanning scenario: The first frame (containing 512 chirps) should be transmitted with the manster antenna Tx1, the second frame with the Tx2-slave antenna and the third frame with the Tx3-slave antenna....and then start over again according to the chart. I.e. each frame looks exaktly the same, but transmitted from different antennas.

We got everything working using only the master Tx1-antenna for all frames, but...my question is, can we configure the chips to do a scanning scenario according to my chart? And if so can you guide us within the Radar Interface Control-doc? Are you doing anything similar with some example-code for your cascaded eval board, MMWCAS-RF-EVM?

Best regards
Henric

Cascade_details.pdf

  • 0
    TI__Mastermind 18470 points

    Hi Henric, 

    I think you can configure the exact scheme you have in mind. If you have not already seen this, please reference our chirp configuration application note here: https://www.ti.com/lit/an/swra553a/swra553a.pdf. You need to reference the Advanced Frame Configuration section 6: https://www.ti.com/lit/an/swra553a/swra553a.pdf#page=11

    In the normal configuration API the largest unit of configuration for the AWR devices is the frame. A frame is constructed from different chirp and chirp profiles configurations combined together in sequence. The chirp configuration is where options like TX enable/disable can be set. Each frame will be exactly the same configuration unless there is a profile or chirp re-configuration change done and a new frame is constructed. So individual TX cannot be enabled/disabled on frame boundaries without re-configuration. 

    Alternatively, using the advanced frame configuration API commands, a frame is constructed by combining sub-frames, with each sub-frame referencing their own profiles and chirp configurations in the same manner as above.  

    The TX-BF matlab setup, capture and post-processing example included with mmWave Studio shows how to setup an advanced frame configuration for the purposes of beam-steering within a frame. Sub-frames are setup with different phase-shifter values applied to different TX. This isn't exactly what you need, but it might help: \mmwave_studio_02_01_00_00\mmWaveStudio\MatlabExamples\4chip_cascade_TxBF_example\RSTD\Sensor_AdvanceFrame_BF.m

    Thank you,

    -Randy