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122 GHz Wideband

Highend Module

The wideband version of the Silicon Radar 122 GHz frontend TRAˍ120ˍ045 has almost the same analogue topolgy then the standard 122 GHz radar frontend. It's not a standard module, therefore an official datasheet is not available. Due to the collabration with Silicon Radar as official Solution Partner we will support you by integrating such a radar system to your application. The main difference are the PLL loop filter topology, which is realized as active filter with negative feedback to cover the total bandwidth of 20.2 GHz. The main benefit of the high bandwidth is the lower resolution (7.5 mm). The accuracy is in gneral not affected by the higher bandwidth.

The basic operation overview is given in the following table:

Parameter Value
Frequency range 113.9 -134.1 GHz (20.2 GHz)
Resolution > 7.5 mm
Accuracy < 0.1 mm
ISM band 122-123 GHz
Radar operation FMCW and CW
Baseband high pass filter cutoff variable (down to 0 for pure CW measurements)
ADC 12 bit I and Q data
Baseband amplification (VGA) variable baseband amplification possible
Power supply 5.0 V
Current consumption 400 mA peak
RAPID v3 platform yes

122 GHz

Highend Module

The 122 GHz radar frontend TRX_120_001 or TRX_120_002 from Silicon Radar are analogue frontends which means that only the RF circuitry including the antennas is included in the QFN package. The baseband circuitry (filter, amplifier, AD converter) and the phase-locked-loop (PLL) for controlling the voltage controlled oscillator (VCO) are realized with discrete parts on the PCB. This yields in a high flexibility which makes adjustments to your application easily possible. The main drawback are the higher cost compared to even more integrated transceivers. An addiotional benefit of the high operating frequency is the beam focussing capability. The half-power-beamwidth (HPBW) by using a dielectric lens is halfed compared to 60 GHz system using the same lens dimensions.

The AD conversion and the control of other discrete parts (PLL, VGAs, filters, etc.) on this module is performed by a STM32L4 Cortex-M4 microcontroller. The standard firmware calculates the 3 dominant targets sorted by their amplitude value. The interface for transferring the targets is UART or I2C which is also used for controlling the module. Additionally, the raw ADC data could be transferred via SPI.

The basic operation overview is given in the following table:

Parameter Value
Frequency range 119.3 -125.8 GHz (6.5 GHz)
ISM band 122-123 GHz
Radar operation FMCW and CW
Baseband high pass filter cutoff variable (down to 0 for pure CW measurements)
ADC 12 bit I and Q data
Baseband amplification (VGA) variable baseband amplification possible
Power supply 3.3 V
Current consumption 500 mA peak
RAPID v3 platform yes