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[FAQ] DCA1000EVM: ADC Data Capture files size larger than 1 GB

Guru*** 137919 points
Part Number: DCA1000EVM

This information applies to any of the mmWave sensor BOOST EVMs

As described in the mmwave studio User's Guide Section "3 Using the DCA1000 EVM for capturing the raw ADC data", after 1GB of capture, a new file will be created to store the additional captured data. The EVM appends"Raw_n" to the file name given by the user.

C:\ti\mmwave_studio_02_00_00_02\docs\mmwave_studio_user_guide.pdf

Let's assume that the size of the captured data requires 3 files. The following files will be generated: myFile_Raw_0.bin, myFile_Raw_1.bin, myFile_Raw_2.bin. These files include the raw data from the sensor but also meta data generated by the transfer protocol. In these files the data is formatted in UDP packets.

These files may not include the received UDP packets in the correct order. So, the next step is to run the Packet reorder and zero fill utility for each "Raw_n" file.

The output of this process will be 3 new files: myFile-0.bin, myFile-1.bin, myFile-.bin. These files include raw data. The metadata has been removed.

An important piece of information for these files is that they do NOT include an integer number of frames. ONLY the first file "myFile-0.bin" is guranteed to start on a frame boundary.

This is the reason why the mmwave studio User's Guide includes the following NOTE:

NOTE: The matlab post processing utility in mmWaveStudio processes only the first captured raw ADC file successfully. For processing other files, user will have to develop his own processing.

Notice that it would be possible to write a utility that could compute the number of bytes of the partial frame at the end of the first file, then remove or add the rest of the partial frame from the beginning of the second file.

In this way, the second file will start on a frame boundary and can be processed with the matlab post processing utility integrated in mmwave studio.

Notice that this kind of parsing would have to be accomplished anyway to develop own processing. Indeed the processing must be aware of the frame boundary

  • Thank you for posting this Cesar!


    Cheers,
    Akash
  • Hi Cesar / Akash 

    A related question ( not sure if it has been answered earlier)  on the RAW data format and multiple files . 

    * Figure 18 / Section 9.2 of  swra518b  doesn't seem to mention the data structure for Multiple Transmitters.  

    Could you elaborate with reference to Figure 18 - if we enable 3 transmitters in 6843 ? 

    Or , in the absence of mentioning # of Transmitters, does it mean the aggregation for Ntx and MRx  already happened ? 

    ( Earlier a similar question has been raised, but I'm unable to figure out the discussed answer) 

    * Is there a setting I could use to  reduce the file size to 512MB/ file , as against the current 1GB/file ?  -- will take care of missing data afor the frames due to this fracturing offline, during the stitching. 

    thanks 

    ...ravi

  •  Thanks Cesar.

    The similar question to Ravi Swami.

    What is the RAW data format and the  UDP packet format?  for example, where does meta data  store in the  UDP packet.

  • Hi,

    You can use wireshark to check the UDP packet format structure.

    The data format is provided in the DCA1000EVM User's Guide

    www.ti.com/.../spruij4.pdf Section 5

    Thank you
    Cesar