D3 Engineering announced its DesignCore RS-6843AOP and RS-6843AOPU mmWave Radar Sensors. These miniature sensors enable the implementation of many different mmWave radar algorithms to measure, detect, and track. The production-intent sensors feature a 1-inch cube form factor, heat-spreading metal body, and mounting tabs. They may be used with a PC or embedded platform to facilitate field testing, sensing evaluation, algorithm development, and application demonstrations.

Industrial applications supported by these sensors include robotics, autonomous machines, industrial vehicle systems, and facility monitoring. Specific applications include driver monitoring, collision avoidance, and people counting and tracking. The sensors can also be used in many other use cases with a tethered host processor or stand-alone.

The sensors feature the TI IWR6843AOP, a single-chip 60-GHz industrial radar sensor integrating a DSP, an MCU, radar accelerator as well as an antenna array built right into the package. The IWR6843AOP RF front end integrates a PLL, three transmitters, four receivers, and a baseband ADC. It covers 60 GHz with bandwidths up to 4 GHz and features 12 dBm transmit power and noise figure 15 dB or better across the band. The processing cores in the IWR6843AOP include a C674x DSP for FMCW signal processing, a hardware accelerator for radar cube processing, and a Cortex-R4F microcontroller for object tracking, classification, and communications.

The RS-6843AOP features a header for connection to optional baseboards or hosts providing additional interfaces and functionality. Included on this interface are I2C, SPI, GPIO, and UART connections. On the other hand, the main interface of the RS-6843AOPU version is a USB-C connector which can act as a power supply input as well as enumerating two serial UARTS, one for console and the other for processed radar returns or other algorithm output.

The sensors include custom firmware ensuring board support for the latest version of the SDK from TI.

For additional specifications and drawings download the DesignCore RS-x843AOP/RS-x843AOPU mmWave Radar Sensor Datasheet

The DesignCore RS-6843AOPU mmWave Radar Sensor is $349 and is available for order.