Adapter board for radar-based applications in distance measurement and people detection

Reliable solutions for distance measurement and people and surface detection play a key role in IoT applications. Here, there is a strong demand for smaller and lower-power radars. With the RAB3, the experts from Rutronik System Solutions are growing their board family with an Adapter Board to test the usage of a fully integrated module and the possibility of a discrete development. By speeding up the pre-development phase and lowering costs, the board helps bring radar-based applications to market faster.

IoT control applications have become a trend, and with them, the demand for information-collecting devices. Here, radar sensing is highly robust and stable regarding external conditions such as temperature changes and ambient light.

"Furthermore, radar detects motion but does not use the actual images, thus providing a real privacy benefit. With our RAB3, you benefit from a development environment to test compact and lower-power radar applications," notes Stephan Menze, head of Global Innovation Management at Rutronik.

The board features high-performance components. The Nisshinbo 60GHz Smart Sensor Micro-Module supplies a non-contact, highly accurate measurement solution. Radar sensing at 60GHz is a non-contact and highly accurate measurement solution. This is beneficial for realising applications for distance measurement or people counting with the distance, angle, and state detection sensor using a 60GHz band millimetre wave. With the Infineon XENSIV 60GHz Radar Sensor, a discrete radar IC complements the latest radar technology provided with the board to work on a user's application. This 60GHz radar sensor comes with one transmitting and three receiving antennas thanks to its small form factor and low power consumption. The L-shaped antenna can be employed for array, horizontal, and vertical angular measurement. This allows advanced radar sensing.

Thanks to the Arduino interface, the board can be easily combined with all other of the company's base boards and adapter boards. The modular concept opens up various development approaches that you can implement quickly, cost-effectively, and simply but in a technically sophisticated way. By combining the board with the Base Board RDK3, it is feasible to implement detection without privacy issues and also in badly lit and dark surroundings and localised use via BLE, which is sufficient for some applications such as people detection and presence detection in factories, conference and exhibitions halls, shopping malls or similar. It is also possible, for example, to connect it to the Text-to-Speech Adapter Board, which is based on Epson core hardware and software. This second Adapter Board makes it possible to use the voice output to communicate that a maximum of people are in a room or hall. With the Text-to-Speech Adapter Board, up to 12 languages can be realised as voice output.

PCIM Europe 2024, Booth 659, Hall 7, 11-13 June 2024.