For his Hackaday Prize entry, [Ted Yapo] is building a Robot Radar Module breakout board. His design uses the A111 60 GHz pulsed coherent radar (PCR) sensor from Acconeer AB (New Part alert!) .
The A111 is a low power, high precision sensor ideal for use in object detection or gesture sensing applications. The BGA package is tiny – 5.5 mm x 5.2 mm, but it does not appear very difficult for a hacker to assemble. The sensor includes an integrated baseband, RF front-end and Antenna in Package so you don’t have to mess with RF layout headaches. Acconeer claims the sensor performance is not affected with interference from noise, dust, color and direct or indirect light. Sensing range is about 2 m with a +/- 2 mm accuracy. And at just under $10 a pop for 10 units or more, it would make a nice addition to augment the sensor package on a Robot.
To get started, [Ted] is keeping his design simple and small – the break out board measures just 32 mm x 32 mm. The radar sensor itself doesn’t require any parts other than a crystal and its loading capacitors. A LDO takes care of the 1.8 V required by the A111. Three 74LVC2T45 chips translate the SPI digital interface from 1.8 V to external logic levels between 1.8 V to 5 V. The three level translation chips could possible be replaced by a single six or eight channel translator – such as one from the TXB series from TI. For his first PCB iteration, [Ted] is expecting to run in to some layout or performance issues, so if you have any feedback to give him on his design, check out his hardware repository on Github.
Acconeer provides a Getting Started guide for their Evaluation Kits, which includes a detailed Raspberry-Pi / Raspbian installation and an accompanying video (embedded after the break) targeted at hackers. We are eagerly looking forward to the progress that [Ted] makes with this sensor breakout. Combined with LiDAR ToF sensor breakout boards, such as the MappyDot, it would be a great addition to your robot’s sensing capabilities.
