[Gregory Charvat] continues to have a great time testing out radar systems. He and a friend have pointed the radar out the garage door and are using it to see who can reach a high running velocity.
The last time we looked in on [Greg’s] work he had acquired an old police radar unit and wired it up to use with a laptop. The hardware he’s working with now is a lot more bulky and we don’t think it will be hitting the road with him anytime soon (although it is on wheels). The video after the break starts off which an overview of the test system which is mounted in a waist-high rack. He illustrates how Labview is monitoring the radar inputs and then moves on to show off the hardware which is actually harvesting the data. The box is quite versatile, able to run five different systems and includes a slew of different connector types.
Another party trashed by Nyquist and Shannon.
I don’t get it.
lol!
I wonder if those cheap Doppler Radar modules from eBay (Item number: 271086423188) are any good for some velocity measurement experiments… they have a PCB patch antenna so I suppose not very good.
I’ve gone one of these units from this seller, mounted on a breadboard next to me.. Here’s a little more info on the unit (datasheet/app notes): http://www.openimpulse.com/blog/products-page/product-category/hb100-microwave-sensor-module/
Planning on putting this in a waveguide to increase gain, and putting together a LCD for speed output (likely using a microcontroller to make tuning/adjustments easily)
So far I haven’t built an amplifier for the IF output, but looking at the output of the module it definitely detects _something_, but the output appears to be influenced more by the distance of the object than the velocity… Have yet to point it at something considerably far away or moving at a significant velocity (faster than I can wave a book in front of it).