background image

 

 

Data Sheet /  

User Manual 

PulsON

®

 440 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

320-0317A  
Dec 2015 

DRAFT 

 

 

TIME DOMAIN

®

 

 

Cummings Research Park 

 

4955 Corporate Drive Suite 101 

 

Huntsville, AL  35805  USA 

http://www.timedomain.com

 

Tel:  

+1 256.922.9229 

 

+1 888.826.8378  

Fax: 

+1.256.922.0387

 

Summary of Contents for PulsON 440

Page 1: ...ser Manual PulsON 440 320 0317A Dec 2015 DRAFT TIME DOMAIN Cummings Research Park 4955 Corporate Drive Suite 101 Huntsville AL 35805 USA http www timedomain com Tel 1 256 922 9229 1 888 826 8378 Fax 1 256 922 0387 ...

Page 2: ...ic errata sheets or will be incorporated in new versions of this document The latest version of this document and future documents can be found on the Time Domain website The name number and date of this document can be found on the left side of the cover page Regulatory Approvals The P440 as supplied by Time Domain has not yet been certified for use in any particular geographic region by the appr...

Page 3: ...ite 20 2 6 Software Support 21 3 HARDWARE BLOCK DIAGRAM 22 4 ELECTRICAL INTERFACES 24 4 1 Connecting to the P440 25 4 2 Connector Pinouts 25 4 3 Powering and Grounding the Unit 29 4 3 1 Powering the P440 through the USB Power jack vs Locking Mezzanine connectors 29 4 3 2 Reverse polarity protection 29 4 3 3 Two means of powering the P440 29 4 3 4 Chassis Ground 30 4 3 5 Fused_Ground and Digital_Gr...

Page 4: ... 52 6 4 Precision Range Measurement Precision Accuracy and Bias 52 6 4 1 Precision and Accuracy in LOS conditions 52 6 4 2 Precision and Accuracy in NLOS conditions 53 6 4 3 Bias and Calibration 53 6 5 CRE Range Measurement Precision and Accuracy 54 6 6 Data Communications Rate and Throughput 54 6 7 Operating Range of P440 Radar 55 6 8 P440 Version Differences 55 7 BROADSPEC ANTENNA 56 8 REGULATOR...

Page 5: ...440 like all of the members of the P400 family is a coherent radio transceiver This means that the energy in each transmitted pulse can be summed to increase the Signal to Noise Ratio SNR of received transmissions Each time the number of pulses sent is doubled the SNR of the received signal will double increase by 3 dB This comes at the cost of doubling the amount of time required to complete a fu...

Page 6: ...de robots with location knowledge To guide drones as they fly To precisely locate vehicles in tunnels and mines To maintain safe distances between construction vehicles To measure the respiration rate of patients To locate and track people as they move through an area To precisely measure the length of long structures To precisely measure the location of specific features in buildings To track for...

Page 7: ...t is responsible for transmitting and receiving UWB pulses It handles all communications with the user s Host processor typically a PC or single board computer The format of these communications is defined by a set of three APIs each tailored to a specific application The user has a choice of communicating with the P440 over 5 different physical interfaces Ethernet USB SPI Serial and CAN When inst...

Page 8: ...s These GUIs operate on a PC and exercise all of the API commands They also display received data and allow the user to log all received data or API messages sent or received by the Host Each GUI focuses on one particular API RangeNet RET is used to demonstrate simple point to point ranging and communications under the control of a host processor as well as operation as a full ranging network unde...

Page 9: ... can be used as a development tool In general the GUIs perform as one would expect They allow the user to configure the P440s initiate range and radar requests move in and out of a network move to and from different sleep states measure the P440 temperature display status hardware and software version numbers as well as other useful information In addition they allow the user to display and log co...

Page 10: ...of sight NLOS b determine if the signal is in compression and c whether or not the signal is corrupted by multipath or Fresnel effects This is illustrated in Figure 2 It is possible to measure the signal strength of the first arriving pulse as opposed to the strength of the largest multipath signal It is possible to measure the background noise level That in conjunction with the signal strength me...

Page 11: ...range measurement This is an alternate way of automatically distributing range information through a system Finally the P440 uses the API to make the range measurements error flags range error estimates signal strength measurements measurements of background noise and waveform measurements available to the Host processor The RangeNet GUI exercises each of the API commands thereby allowing the user...

Page 12: ... given area For example the information shown in Figure 4 was collected as the distance between two units was increased Basically one unit was stationary while the second unit was slowly driven away Figure 4 shows a plot of the Signal Noise and SNR as a function of separation distance In this figure one can observe several items of note There is a Fresnel cancellation at 40 60 and 100 meters There...

Page 13: ...radios in the system Operation of the network is controlled by the P440 In particular the P440 is responsible for scheduling range requests maintaining all of the neighbors in a database and passing data between the Host and the network The Host computer function is thereby limited to monitoring and supervision thus significantly offloading its responsibilities The RangeNet API provides the user w...

Page 14: ...ntative RangeNet slot map Maintaining system synchronization is the responsibility of the P440 processor and it does so with an accuracy of 1 μs Because the P440 supports multiple communications channels it is possible to operate either the ALOHA or TDMA protocol with a CDMA overlay Because the P440 network schedules range requests it avoids the overhead of Host to P440 communications and can ther...

Page 15: ...d a TW TOF range measurement with the target unit While the accuracy of a CRE does not compare with the accuracy of the TW TOF measurement its level of accuracy is frequently good enough to be useful and it has the added benefit of expanding the network knowledge without incurring any cost While these are all powerful network tools the complexity inherent in this richness can make it difficult to ...

Page 16: ...portion of the radar return should be measured and reported Furthermore that portion does not need to be continuous or taken at the same integration For example it is possible to measure the radar return corresponding to the distance From the antenna to 10 meters From 10 to 20 meters from the antenna From 10 to 20 meters from 30 to 40 meters and from 50 to 55 meters From 10 to 20 meters with integ...

Page 17: ...with the raw data It should be noted that these filters are very general in nature and are not optimized for any particular application They are offered to the system developer as an example and the source code for the filters can be found in the MRM RET User Guide The MRM RET GUI and associated sample code allow the user to exercise the P440 in a number of important ways Consider the following th...

Page 18: ...of soda cans arranged to form the letters UAH A copy of their project can be found on the Time Domain website at the following link http www timedomain com UAH 20Senior 20Project 20 20Final 20Presentation 20V4 pdf Example 3 ISAR imaging a team at the University of Texas Austin used the radar to build an inverse synthetic aperture radar ISAR image of windmill blades These results are shown in Figur...

Page 19: ...and targets operating in the area He might then use Doppler processing or motion filters to separate the clutter from the targets Fig 10 Captured waveforms can be used by either communications or radar engineers Given this it is best to ignore the application differences and focus on the functions provided by the CAT API and GUI The API allows the user to transmit an arbitrary number of packets at...

Page 20: ...end a fixed data pattern with a length of up to 1000 bytes and 2 the P440 will report the SNR of the signal The GUI allows the user to configure the units initiate transmission and then collect display and log the data The GUI will also report and log various statistics including packet error rate bit error rate packets sent bits sent and SNR Eb No 2 5 Networking RangeNet vs RangeNet Lite RangeNet...

Page 21: ...ted to maintaining full featured software support for the hardware platforms We believe that the success of UWB will be largely determined not by the capability of the hardware but by the richness of the software which drives the hardware This includes improvements to both the embedded software where the basic functionality of the UWB technology can be changed and the API interface where upper lay...

Page 22: ...4 5 48Volts Flash and RAM Memory Flash Memory Blue LED Green LED Optional Power Amp Regulatory Filter 16MHz Osc USB Power Jack SPI 5 3 3V GPIO 3 3 3V GPIO 3 J10 User Mezzanine VCC_Main Power Enable Fused Ground SPI 5 Serial CAN ARM 3 3V GPIO 2 FPGA 3 3V GPIO 2 J11 Locking Connector VCC_Main Fused Ground SPI 5 Serial CAN ARM 3 3V GPIO 1 FPGA 3 3V GPIO 3 Power Enable Ethernet RMII J13 J8 Ethernet Me...

Page 23: ...plications require only one antenna but there are cases where two can provide additional functionality Most radar applications require two antennas The processor controls the UWB front end through a Digital Baseband FPGA interface More specifically the FPGA acts as a digital baseband to configure and control Time Domain s Fully Integrated Front End FIFE UWB ASIC such that it is possible to transmi...

Page 24: ...One 0 1 DIP header This arrangement provides the user with a great deal of flexibility However some users may prefer a reduced set of interfaces In this case it is possible to no load undesired components Doing so saves a bit of cost and minimizes the board footprint Such configurations are possible but not standard and should only be considered for large volume applications of 1000 units For furt...

Page 25: ...ides power and ground See the following section for details Option 5 Ethernet Mezzanine Connector This connector provides power ground and all of the Ethernet MAC signal lines necessary to communicate with the unit However this requires that the user provide an Ethernet PHY chip on a carrier board Several of these connection approaches offer access to the GPIO pins See the following section for de...

Page 26: ...er_Serial_RX User serial receive 13 Fused_GND Ground 14 Fused_GND Ground 15 FPGA_GPIO_3_3 3V FPGA General Purpose IO 3 3 3VDC 16 CAN_HIGH CAN differential high 17 VCC_Main Input power 4 5 to 48v 18 CAN_LOW CAN differential low Pin Name Function 1 SPI_MOSI SPI Master Out Slave In 2 Fused_GND Ground 3 SPI_MISO SPI Master In Slave Out 4 SPI_INT SPI interrupt 5 Fused_GND Ground 6 FPGA_GPIO_1_3 3V FPGA...

Page 27: ...igital Ground 10 E_TxCk Ethernet TxCk 11 E_Rx0 Ethernet Rx0 12 Digital_GND Digital Ground 13 E_MDIO Ethernet MDIO 14 E_MDC Ethernet MDC 15 Digital_GND Digital Ground 16 Digital_GND Digital Ground 17 ARM_GPIO_0_1 8V ARM General Purpose IO 0 1 8VDC 18 ARM_GPIO_1_1 8V ARM General Purpose IO 1 1 8VDC 19 Digital_GND Digital Ground 20 Digital_GND Digital Ground 21 Ext_16MHz_In Reserved Pin Name Function...

Page 28: ... 15e J7 User Serial 0 1 Header Fig 15f Locking connector pinouts Fig 15g J10 Mezzanine connector pinouts Pin Name Function 1 Digital_GND Digital ground 2 No Connection Reserved 3 No Connection Reserved 4 User_Serial_RX User serial receive 5 User_Serial_TX User serial transmit 6 No Connection Reserved 17 15 13 11 9 7 5 3 1 18 16 14 12 10 8 6 4 2 20 18 16 14 12 10 8 6 4 2 21 19 17 15 13 11 9 7 5 3 1...

Page 29: ...hat the user cannot accidentally connect power through the Locking connector at voltages as high as 48 volts while simultaneously connecting power through the USB Power jack at 5 volts Allowing this to happen would put both the P440 and any computer connected to the USB Data jack at risk of severe damage 4 3 2 Reverse polarity protection The power input VCC_Main is reverse polarity protected and c...

Page 30: ...is the preferred connection but there are some cases in which it might be better to connect to the Digital_Ground Customers intending to make use of these connections should contact the factory and discuss the issue in more detail 4 3 6 P440 Power Requirements When operating continuously a standard P440 requires approximately 2 watts However two other factors need to be considered First the power ...

Page 31: ...erface Options The P440 supports five different host interfaces USB Serial SPI Ethernet and CAN This wide choice of interfaces provides the user with the freedom to experiment with and to optimize the means by which the overall system P440 plus the user Host communicates for their specific application The characteristics of these interfaces are summarized below For information on pin assignments s...

Page 32: ... the maximum rate is largely a function of the ability of the system to drive the cable capacitance If a shorter cable is used or if the user provides an external line driver then the communications rate can be increased by factors of 2 up to 921 6 kbps Operation at these higher ranges is also limited by the serial interface circuit on the user provided Host computer The maximum length of cable mu...

Page 33: ...ssibly followed by data The first bit MSb of a command is always set If the second bit is set then it is a read command otherwise it is a write command The commands are listed below in Figure 20 The chip select must stay active low for the entire transaction which is required to be on 8 bit boundaries This and other timing diagrams are shown in Figure 21 Timing constraints are shown in Figure 22 C...

Page 34: ... Timing diagrams CSn CLK MOSI MISO 1 0 7 1 0 7 End of a SPI transaction Start of next SPI transaction t1 t2 t3 t4 t5 t6 t7 Timing Function Minimum t1 CLK high to CLK low high pulse 30 ns t2 CLK low to CLK high low pulse 30 ns t3 CLK rising edge to CSn rising edge inactive 50 ns t4 CSn rising edge inactive to CSn falling edge active or time between transactions 60 ns t5 CSn falling edge active to C...

Page 35: ... of a Kit then the Node ID will be set to x If the P440 came as an Industrial Module then the Node ID is set at the factory and can be determined through the API or any of the GUIs provided with the system Instructions on how to connect to the P440 via Ethernet or change the IP address and Node ID are provided in the following document 320 0328 Connecting to P440 with Ethernet 4 4 5 CAN The CAN in...

Page 36: ...er switch on the P440 controls how the RF electronics are connected to the SMA connector Normal operation can be defined as 1 Transmit Receive on Port A 2 Transmit on A Receive on B 3 Transmit Receive on Port B 4 Transmit on B Receive on A RF energy generated by the UWB FIFE chip for radiation from the antenna will travel through the RF transfer switch on its way to the antenna In doing so some of...

Page 37: ...time of flight electrical distance between the antenna port and the phase center of the antenna Failure to account for such changes will result in an offset or bias error in range measurements 4 7 RF Transmit and Receive Characteristics Two versions of the P440 are available one which is compliant with the US FCC transmission mask as described in FCC Part 15 519 and one which is compliant with the...

Page 38: ...s located adjacent to the RJ45 connector Blue Built in Test BIT flashing slowly approximately 0 5 Hz indicates that the unit is operating normally Flashing quickly approximately 10 Hz or solidly on or solidly off also indicates a failure Green UWB activity Toggles if off turns on if on turns off as follows o On initiation of a Range or Network Request packet transmission o On initiation of a Range...

Page 39: ...re that the unit is not operated in excess of the maximum rated temperature The following examples are provided to illustrate the effect of self heating on temperature rise Case 1 Ambient 23 C bare board sitting on a table with light air circulation Board Temp 32 C Case 2 Ambient 23 C bare board sitting on a table in still air Board Temp 41 C Case 3 Ambient 23 C board mounted in Time Domain enclos...

Page 40: ...ng the unit to a fixed object Fig 26 P440 in standard enclosure left and view of enclosure bottom showing feet and mounting holes for 4 40 screw 4 11 2 Power Supply Charger with Battery and Cables P440s provided with Kits and Labs are powered through the USB Power jack Time Domain also provides each P440 with a USB Power Supply battery charger two USB cables 1 8 m and 15 cm and a 3000mAh USB batte...

Page 41: ...nts Where possible it includes specific suppliers and part numbers Entering the product description into your favorite internet search engine will lead you to any number of suppliers Description Searchable description Source and part number USB battery AFENDO 3000mah External Portable Rechargeable Battery 6 ft 1 7 m USB cable 6ft USB 2 0 A Male to Micro 5pin Male 28 28AWG Cable Monoprice product n...

Page 42: ...n The one on the right will cause endless problems Nothing will ruin a multiday measurement campaign more completely than a few cheap and worthless USB cables and connections Fig 28 Superior connections left and inadequate product right When providing power from USB devices do NOT use USB extension cables There is sufficient voltage drop across these cables that they will not provide sufficient po...

Page 43: ... have an inside diameter of 0 125 inches 3 175 mm and are sized for a 4 screw The pads have an outside diameter of 0 250 inches 6 35 mm The minimum distance between the center of the hole and the closest component or circuit trace is 0 140 3 556 mm It is anticipated that the number of mounting holes size of the holes and placement separations are sufficient to satisfy most vibration requirements S...

Page 44: ...mit vertical height When the P440 is mounted on a carrier board the designer should be careful not to place any components within 0 125 3 17 mm of the bottom of the board This is a keep out area and it is reserved for components on the bottom side of the P440 board Note that mating parts for the mezzanine connectors are available with different lengths By selecting a suitably tall mating connector...

Page 45: ...DRAFT 45 Fig 32 Locations and dimensions of Power and I O connectors at the rear of the P440 Fig 33 Locations and dimensions of RF SMA connectors The part numbers for the P440 connectors and their mating pair are shown in Table 2 ...

Page 46: ...key J610 ND Many different choices J5 USB Data FCI 10103594 0001LF Digikey 609 4050 1 ND Many different choices J6 Factory Mezzanine FCI 91931 31121LF Digikey 609 3520 2 ND FCI 91911 31321LF Digikey 609 3424 2 ND J7 User Header 3M 961106 6404 AR Digikey 3M9451 ND Many different choices J8 Ethernet Mezzanine FCI 91931 31121LF Digikey 609 3520 2 ND FCI 91911 31321LF Digikey 609 3424 2 ND J10 User Me...

Page 47: ...er Ripple 100 mV pk pk Power Protection Reverse voltage Electrostatic Discharge Protection 8kV contact discharge and 15kV air gap discharge Chassis Ground Available See Section 4 3 4 for details Time from power on to completion of boot 11 seconds no cables connected with Serial connected or USB connected or no cables connected 7 seconds Ethernet connected Minimum time the power must be turned off ...

Page 48: ..._E Standby_S 3 2 Watts 2 2 Watts 2 2 Watts Enter 1 2 ms Exit 1 2 ms Operating Temperature 21o C On flat surface scanning light air circulation On flat surface scanning no air circulation In Time Domain standard enclosure receiving 27o C 6o over ambient 43o C 21o over ambient 46o C 25o over ambient User Interfaces Devices USB USB 2 0 Client Micro B connector Maximum rate 480 Mbps See Section 4 4 2 ...

Page 49: ...arty antennas Antenna Control Transfer switch allows user to configure antennas as either a Tx Rx on either or b Transmit on one Receive on the other Transfer Switch Transmit to Receive Isolation 20 dB Dynamic Range Integration 1 instantaneous 30 dB Integration 16 1 PII 4 42 dB Min Ranging Integration Integration 64 1 PII 6 48 dB Min Radar Integration Integration 1024 1 PII 10 60 dB Max Ranging In...

Page 50: ...unce provides signal enhancement which increases overall range When operating at PII 8 with antennas 2 5 meters above the ground one can expect to operate out to 600 meters An example is shown in Figure 34 There are also exceptional cases For example where the antennas are ideally placed or the ground topology is providing significant antenna gain it is possible to operate out to 1000 meters One c...

Page 51: ...n exceptionally strong out of band transmitter or other transmitters operating in the P440 s operating band Assuming that ambient noise is not a factor and there are no other factors in play then a standard P440 with a standard Broadspec antenna should operate as shown in Table 4 Two performance columns are shown one for Free Space and the second for Open Field The difference between the two refle...

Page 52: ...nd a single responder unit Table 5 Data and ranging performance characteristics at maximum legal transmit power 6 4 Precision Range Measurement Precision Accuracy and Bias 6 4 1 Precision and Accuracy in LOS Conditions The Line of Sight LOS Precision and Accuracy specification is based on a measurement campaign that included 20 000 range measurements taken in an open field over an operating range ...

Page 53: ...e RF signals at the P440 s operating frequency At the opposite end of the propagation spectrum would be operation inside a metal ship Because metal blocks radio frequencies the operating range would be limited to the size of the room Operation in NLOS conditions must be determined empirically Having said that we routinely measure range from one side of our office space to the other a distance of 3...

Page 54: ...ause as a weaker signal contains a higher proportion of noise elements This translates into a CRE standard deviation error of approximately 10 at short distances growing up to 30 at very long distances CRE should not be used at distances greater than 100 meters At these distances the change in signal strength with distance is very small and can be less than the average reading to reading variation...

Page 55: ... Time Domain website 6 8 P440 Version Differences From time to time slight changes or improvements are made to the P440 design The version or revision level of any given P440 is indicated in the bar code of that particular P440 See Figure 35 below Fig 35 P440 Version indicated in bar code Unit shown is a Rev A board The following is a list by revision level of any deviations or changes improvement...

Page 56: ...adding cabling between the P440 and the antenna will require recertification of the equipment For example as per FCC 15 203 the Broadspec antenna must be professionally installed and the installer has the responsibility to insure that the Broadspec antenna is used EU regulations have similar restrictions The P440 can be operated with a single antenna used for transmit and receive or with two anten...

Page 57: ...ore severe requirement that design is inherently also in compliance with the Region 1 regulations 8 1 Compliance with the U S FCC Regulations The standard Region 1 P440 has been designed to be in compliance with the FCC regulations governing UWB hand held systems Part 15 519 also known as battery powered devices or mobile devices This means that the device can be incorporated in a wide variety of ...

Page 58: ...icense customers the P440 is capable of transmitting at power levels in excess of the FCC limits for enhanced performance In order to use these higher powers please consult and seek authorization from the appropriate regulatory agencies Time Domain has expertise in working with regulatory agencies and can help as needed However the responsibility for obtaining such authorization rests with the end...

Page 59: ...ices beyond just the emission mask These requirements are related to the specific end application For example depending on the user s intended application there can be additional limitations or flexibilities on the location of fixed and mobile transmitters as well as on the rate at which transmissions can be generated There are also alternate mitigation strategies which can be used to accomplish t...

Page 60: ...ng under ECCN 5A001b 4 are controlled for export purposes pursuant to the Commerce Control List for National Security and Antiterrorism For the latest information from the Commerce Department on Export please go to http www bis doc gov licensing exportingbasics htm While Time Domain has shipped product to more than a dozen countries and takes pride in doing so there are a small number of countries...

Page 61: ...B battery packs will drive the unit so the user has the freedom to experiment with alternate battery approaches The P440 software offerings include the following RangeNet RangeNet Lite RangeNet is Time Domain s GUI for demonstrating two different capabilities First it allows the user to measure the distance between two P440 units using TW TOF ranging Second it allows the user to define a network o...

Page 62: ...s 6 ft 1 8 m 5 short USB cables 6 in 15cm RangeNet Lite ranging and network software node locked to 10 nodes 5 hours of technical support MATLAB based localization demonstration P440 Radar Development Kit 440MR01 Region 1 440MR02 Region 2 Contains 2 P440 modules o 140RM01 for Region 1 o 140RM02 for Region 2 4 Broadspec antennas 100ANR3 2 enclosures 2 rechargeable USB batteries 2 USB wall chargers ...

Page 63: ...tatic radar as well as the Channel Analysis Tool for communication RF channel analysis and modeling 10 hours of technical support Single P440 boards P440 Kit Module 140RM01 Region 1 140RM02 Region 2 Single P440 Module board only no accessories P440 Kit Module with high power amp 140RM03 Single P440 Module board only no accessories with onboard power amp P440 Industrial Module 140RM04 Region 1 140R...

Page 64: ... be used for evaluation or demonstration resale of P440s with this option will require recertification of the unit to the relevant RF emissions requirements Even recertification to overcome extra cable loss will require recertification If the goal is to increase radiated power it should be noted that most but not all regulations and regulators are unsympathetic to requests to radiate above the pub...

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