IWR6843AOP: Integration of the device into our application and product

Hello

Thank you for your interest in MmWave devices and  that provided demo have been relevant

While we get back to you with Peole counting application specific development, wonder if you had an opportunity to understand the example processing chain in SDK OOB demo.  The SDK users's guide can take you to relevant doxygen section for OOB  chain, data flow and implementation details.

Thank you,

Vaibhav

Hi Vaibhav, 

Thank you for the reply. I did take a look but I wanted to know if the flow chart mentioned in the doxygen section is it a generic one? I'm looking for support in both people counting and area scanner development.

Regards,

Divya

Hi Divya,

The SDK doxygen relates to the SDK OOB processing chain which is a range->Doppler (followed by angle of arrival) processing chain which is suited for long-range detection and high velocity applications.

The indoor people counting demos use a different processing chain namely 3D Capon beamforming which uses range-azimuth-elevation (followed by Doppler estimation) capon beamforming processing to provide high angle resolution for indoor applications (and low velocity). Currently, the available high level documentation for people counting demo is included in C:\ti\mmwave_industrial_toolbox_4_5_1\labs\people_counting\68xx_3D_people_counting\docs\3DPeoplecountingDemo_ConfigurationDetails.pdf. As you can see, this is very high level and we are working on developing more detailed implementation documents for these demos but they will be released in a future toolbox update.

Please note that due to a major winter storm in North Texas this weekend, we are facing massive power outages causing delays in our responses.

Regards

-NItin

Hi Nitin,

Thank you for the follow up and information.

Just to be clear and on the same page of understanding our security system application is an outdoor application and according to the above information I see that the applications were categorized into indoor and outdoor. The indoor applications are using beamforming and outdoor application is using OOB processing chain. So Is area scanner an indoor application?  people counting is clearly an indoor application as I see it from above. I'm looking for a clear detailed Implementation documents for the outdoor demos. Could you please let me know how do I proceed further from here?

Regards,

Divya

Divya,

What is the max range requirement of your security application? any other information that you can provide about the use case (e.g. field of view, moving targets detection etc) would also help us to make a better suggestion.

Thanks

-Nitin

Hi Nitin,

Thank you for the reply.

The max range requirement of the security system is about 17 m. The field of view is pictorially represented below. It completely depends on where the sensor system is placed on the vehicle. The first two pictures  are both side view where the sensor system is placed in two different places on the vehicle. Our major goal is to calculate the distance between the vehicle and an approaching person - the maximum distance needed between these two object is 2m, which is presented in the third top view picture. Therefore, the sensor system would detect the points from the vehicle itself and also presence of human in the field of view. Here I'm assuming the points from the vehicle itself would be static points and the moving target detection would be the human or humans. Please do let me know if you need more information.

Regards,

Divya

Hi Nitin,

Thank you for the update. 

Could you please let me know on how the demos are categorized as indoor or outdoor? Is it just based on distance that it could measure or anything more in specific? I'm asking you this because like I said it depends on where the sensor system is placed on the vehicle. It is also possible to use 10 m.

Regards,

Divya

Hi Divya,

It's a distinction we have made based on the intended use case and one of the factors determining that use-case is range. So as I mentioned earlier, the people counting demos are targeted towards tracking and counting people within a room e.g. up to 3-4m radial in case of overhead people tracking demo and up to 8-10m in case of wall mount people counting demo. Since these demos are meant for counting people, they implement 3D capon beamforming detection chain which provides a higher angular resolution but is meant for short ranges and low velocities (human walking motion). The detection and tracking layer parameters are tuned accordingly for this use case.

The Long range people detection and tracking demo on the other hand is meant for relatively coarse tracking of people at higher range, e.g. up to 50m. It uses the detection chain which is used in the Out of box demo. This detection chain, commonly referred to as the range-Doppler processing chain is able to detect objects (including people) at longer ranges but has lower angular resolution as compared to the Capon beamforming chain. The detection and tracking layer parameters are also tuned accordingly for long range use case meant for tracking people (but not counting) at relatively larger distances which is why we call it an outdoor demo.

I misspoke about the Area scanner demo earlier so need to correct myself: The Area scanner demo is also based on the Out of box demo i.e. the Range-Doppler based chain but it has the added functionality added for static object detection. It can detect and track moving targets at up to 15m but note that the static object detection works at up to < 5m.

Note that for all these demos, the sensor is expected to be stationary for the tracking to work. Also, the following sensor placement will not be able to meet the 8.5m radial (17m total) detection range as shown in the following picture since the field of view for AOP or ODS EVMs is about 120 degrees (i.e. +/- 60 degrees). So I would suggest using the other two orientations that you have shown above.

Hope this clarifies some of your questions.

Regards

-Nitin

Hi Nitin,

The information provided was definitely helpful. 

I tested both the area scanner and long range detection outdoor and also indoor. I see that area scanner could detect upto 6 meters and after that the tracked object just becomes a dynamic point. There are multiple ghost static points in area scanner. Long range detection it has multiple ghost points and I also see .cfg file for 100 meters shows error but I'm not looking for 100 meters so that shouldn't be a question. Maybe 2D and 3D 50 meters I do not see any difference in the output and detects multiple ghost points on both the cases. Correct me if I'm wrong and What is the reason for the ghost static points in area scanner and multiple ghost tracked objects in long range detection? What could be the solution or things we should keep in mind?

Regards,

Divya 

Hi Divya,

Ghost points are usually the result of multi-path reflections i.e. the signal getting bounced back from different objects in the scene and received at the antenna. While it is difficult to get rid of ghost points completely, you can try one or more of the following to reduce them.

1. Reduce clutter in the scene.

2. Reduce transmit power by changing the txPowerBackoff word in the profileCfg command as described in the following post. Note that this will reduce the detection range as well.

https://e2e.ti.com/support/sensors/f/1023/p/945799/3494470#3494470

3. Another thing to try would be to increase the detection threshold in the cfarFovCfg command. 

4. Another way to reduce ghost points would be to limit the detection field of view only to the area of interest by changing the FoV in the aoaFovCfg command

aoaFovCfg -1 -90 90 -90 90.

5. If the ghost points fall outside the area of interest for tracking, another option is to limit the tracking area through the boundaryBox command.

Thanks

-Nitin