Tiny mmWave radar sensor embeds Cortex-R4F core for object tracking, classification

The 1″ cube mmWave RS-6843AOPUA radar sensor, announced by D3 Engineering, is a miniature radar device that enables easy integration of radar algorithms for industrial applications. The RS-6843AOPUA radar sensor is an AECQ-100-qualified 60 GHz device that integrates a Texas Instruments C674x DSP for algorithms and an Arm Cortex-R4F microcontroller unit for decision-making and interfacing. It also has a radar accelerator and an “on-package antenna array.” The RS-6843AOPUA radar sensor features a 1-inch cube form factor, heat-spreading metal body, mounting tabs, and a USB-Serial interface. The USB-Serial interface could be used to test and evaluate the radar sensor.

Functions and Applications of the Radar Sensor

TI C674x DSP: FMCW (Frequency Modulated Continuous Wave) signal processing, Implementation of algorithms
Radar Accelerator: Radar data processing
Arm Cortex-R4F MCU: Object tracking, Classification, Communications

“The RF front end integrates a PLL, three transmitters, four receivers, and baseband ADC, and allows the sensor to cover up to 4 GHz at a 12 dBm transmit power and noise characteristics of better than 15 dB.”

The RS-6843AOPUA radar sensor can be used as a complementary sensor in Driver Monitoring systems. The radar sensor can also be used as a part of object tracking and classification systems that work on the SVM (Support Vector Machine) algorithm. The RS-6843AOPUA radar sensor could also be used in Industrial Vehicle Systems, Robotics, Autonomous Machines, and Edge Sensor Processing.

Two Versions of the Radar Sensor

RS-6843AOPA: Features a 12 pin 0.05” header with interfaces such as JTAG, I/O, I2C, SPI, UART for connection to optional baseboards or host processors. This provides additional functionalities.

RS-6843AOPUA: Features a USB-C jack connector as the primary interface, which can act also as a power supply. One serial UART is used for the console and the second is for processed radar outputs.

Antenna On Package mmWave RADAR Sensor Block Diagram

AOP USB Personality Board is supported for “U” versions only. It contains a power selector switch which gets the external supply via 2 pin Molex Picoblade. The USB connector can also provide a power supply of 5V. The USB connector is further connected to the “USB to serial” unit which has a UART port for transmission and reception.

AOP has a UART and SPI are connected directly to XWRX843 Antenna on Package Module which is also connected by Oscillator working at 400 MHz with 8PF and 500 ohms specification. It also has a QSPI Flash memory of 16 MB

Features

Embeddable Small Form Factor Design
Integrated PLL, Transmitter, Receiver, Baseband, A2D
Ultra-Accurate Chirp (Timing) Engine Based on Fractional-N PLL
I2C, SPI, SYNC_IN, SYCN_OUT, UART, logic level I/O, JTAG
MIMO Antenna-on-Package
16 Mb QSPI Flash
Temperature Sensors
5 VDC Power

The process of moving from the design stage to the prototyping stage and then finally to the production stage is quite fast to design core platforms. It also promises to reduce technical risk, schedule risk, and cost risk. D3 Engineering says “Implement one of many different mmWave radar sensing algorithms to measure, detect, and track.”

The DesignCore RS-6843AOPU mmWave radar sensor is expected to be released in 2021. For preordering queries email at [email protected]. You can find more information in the official datasheet. Images have been taken from the official datasheet.

Saumitra Jagdale

Saumitra Jagdale is a Backend Developer, Freelance Technical Author, Global AI Ambassador (SwissCognitive), Open-source Contributor in Python projects, Leader of Tensorflow Community India and Passionate AI/ML Enthusiast