Reference Designs
Contents
1 General Information
Radar sensors can be designed with or without using a PLL (Phased Locked Loop). We developed our Radar evaluation kits with a PLL-based design. The schematics of these designs are available to customers in Customer Download Area. The designs include front-end control, baseband, analog to digital conversion, digital signal processing option, and data interfaces (control lines, UART, WiFi). There are no HF parts in the designs even though our front ends work with very high frequencies.
2 PLL based Design
A typical PLL-based Radar sensor design consists of a front-end chip, a PLL and loop filter, an amplifier and signal filter, an ADC, and optionally a digital signal processing unit and some data interfaces. While FPGAs and DSPs have been used widely for a long time for Radar processing, also micro-controllers and custom signal processors are used for that purpose today. Our designs include micro-controllers because they are cheap and quite flexible.
2.1 SiRad Easy
The SiRad Easy can mount our 24 GHz, 60 GHz, 120 GHz & 300 GHz, front-end boards. You can find more information about the Easy kit on the Evalkits info page on our website. We provide the SiRad Easy schematics along with our kit in Customer Download Area.
2.2 SiRad Simple
The SiRad Simple has a fixed 120 GHz front end but is smaller than the SiRad Easy. You can find more information about the Simple kit on the Evalkits info page on our website. We provide the SiRad Simple schematics along with our kit in Customer Download Area.