Sense2GoL Development Kit - Device Page
Sense2GoL - Introduction
The Sense2GoL development kit allows the user to implement and test several sensing applications at the 24 GHz ISM band such as Doppler based movement detection, Doppler based direction of movement detection, and Doppler based speed measurements of targets. The kit consists of the BGT24LTR11 transceiver MMIC and a XMC1300 32-bit ARM® Cortex®-M0 for signal processing and communication via USB.
Sense2GoL - Overview
a. Sense2GoL board sections
The board is split into a RF unit and a breakable debugger unit for programming. Part of the RF unit is the highly integrated 24 GHz transceiver IC BGT24LTR11 with 1 TX and 1 RX antenna.
Pin headers on the PCB also allow interfacing with the sensor module via an external processor.
a.1. Breakable Debugger Unit
The breakable onboard debugger comes preloaded with licensed firmware for debugging and communicating with the main radar MCU via the UART pins.
The debugger supports two-pin SWD and UART communication. Both require the installation of SEGGER’s J-Link driver.
a.2. RF Unit
The RF Unit constists of several main sections:
The XMC1302 32-bit ARM® Cortex™-M0 MCU of the Sense2GoL platform can be used to perform the radar signal processing.
It takes care of communication with all the sub-systems on the radar module, enables data acquisition, performs the complete radar signal processing (including sampling and FFT) and communicates the results via its UART to an external device.
Some pins of the XMC1302 on the Sense2GoL module are connected to external LEDs on the top side of the PCB, that can be used for status indication (LED1 - orange, LED2 - red, LED3 - blue).
The baseband section with its outputs IFI & IFQ is connected with the ADC inputs of the XMC1302. The XMC1302 MCU samples the two IF channels of the transceiver chipset and communicates via USB interface to a connected PC. This acquired data, can then be displayed or analyzed in the time and frequency domain, on- or off-board.
The two 4 x 1 antenna array featured by the RF Unit for the transceiver and receiver sections are located on the back of the RF Unit.
A PMOS switch offers the possibility to operate the BGT24LTR11 in a duty-cycle mode, by toggling it over the corresponding pin of the XMC1302. This allows to reduce the power consumption.
For more information see the 'Sense2GoL App Note BGT24LTR11' on the Sense2GoL Product Page.
b. Simplified block diagram
c. Pin-header for external control
The Sense2GoL module has the provision to connect a nine-pin header on the edge of the board in the RF Unit.
The pin header enhances the functionality of the module significantly. It enables probing the analog outputs of the sensor module and also probing various other signals provided to the IC.
In principle, the accessibility of several pins on the radar IC and the IF signals available via the external pin headers enable interfacing the module with an external signal processor.
For more information see the 'Sense2GoL App Note BGT24LTR11' on the Sense2GoL Product Page.