SWRA574B October   2017  – February 2020 AWR1243 , AWR2243

 

  1.   AWR2243 Cascade
    1.     Trademarks
    2. 1 Cascaded AWR2243 System
    3. 2 Synchronization of AWR2243 Chips
      1. 2.1 20 GHz (FMCW) RF LO Sync
      2. 2.2 Digital Frame Sync
        1. 2.2.1 Frame (Burst) and Chirp Timing in AWR2243
        2. 2.2.2 Frame (Burst) and Chirp Timing in a Cascaded System
        3. 2.2.3 Inter Chip Imbalance of Digital Sync Timing
      3. 2.3 40 MHz (System) Reference Clock Synchronization
    4. 3 Connectivity
      1. 3.1 20 GHz LO Sync Pins Connectivity
      2. 3.2 DIG_SYNC Connectivity
      3. 3.3 40 MHz (System) Reference Clock Connectivity
    5. 4 20 GHz LO Sync Link Budget
    6. 5 Software Messaging
      1. 5.1 Configuration of Devices
      2. 5.2 Configuration of Frames
        1. 5.2.1 Similar Configuration Across AWR2243 Devices
        2. 5.2.2 Dissimilar Configuration Across AWR2243 Devices
      3. 5.3 Triggering of Frames
      4. 5.4 Example Usage
      5. 5.5 Other Usages
    7. 6 Advantages of AWR2243 Cascading System
    8. 7 References
  2.   Revision History

5.2 Configuration of Frames

The important parameters related to FMCW chirp configuration are explained in the section on Configurable Chirp RAM and Chirp Profiles in the application report [2]. These include the FMCW chirp’s start frequency, slope, duration, RX gain, sampling rate, transmitter output power and phase shift. These parameters are programmed to the devices using the messages AWR_PROFILE_CONF_SET_SB (profile configuration), AWR_CHIRP_CONF_SET_SB (chirp configuration) and AWR_FRAME_CONF_SET_SB (frame configuration.

The profile configuration message programs the radar front end parameters for up to four profiles and these parameters are static during the frame. The frame configuration message defines the structure and ordering of a set of chirps constituting a frame, along with frame repetition rate and number of frames requested. The chirps themselves are defined using the chirp configuration message and the definition includes an association of each chirp to one of the defined profiles, the TX channels to be enabled and the TX phase. Further, the chirp configuration message allows incremental but independent chirp to chirp dithering of some parameters even if the chirps are associated with the same profile. The dither-able parameters include idle time, FMCW start frequency and FMCW slope.

Some parameters need to be configured similarly across all the AWR2243 devices in the cascaded system while others can be dissimilar. They are detailed in Section 5.2.1.