D3 Engineering announced their DesignCore RS-6843AOPUA mmWave Radar Sensor. This miniature automotive interior sensor enables the implementation of many different mmWave radar algorithms to measure, detect, and track. The production-intent unit features a 1-inch cube form factor, heat-spreading metal body, and mounting tabs. It may be used with a PC or embedded platform to facilitate field testing, sensing evaluation, algorithm development, and application demonstrations.

Automotive interior applications supported by this sensor include Occupant Detection, Child Presence Detection, Vital Signs Monitoring, and other applications to keep people and animals safe in a vehicle. The sensor can be used in many other applications with a tethered host processor or stand-alone.

The sensor features the TI AWR6843AOP, the first of its kind AECQ-100 qualified single-chip 60-GHz automotive radar sensor.  The AWR6843AOP integrates a DSP, an MCU, radar accelerator, as well as an antenna array, built right into the package. The AWR6843AOP 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 AWR6843AOP include a C674x DSP for FMCW signal processing, a hardware accelerator for radar data processing, and a Cortex-R4F microcontroller for object tracking, classification, and communications.

D3’s sensor comes in two versions. The RS-6843AOPA version 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. Whereas, the RS-6843AOPUA version’s main interface 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.

The DesignCore RS-6843AOPUA mmWave Radar Sensor is available for pre-order now.