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Related Manuals for Houston Radar PD420
Summary of Contents for Houston Radar PD420
- Page 1 PD420 FMCW Radar User Manual and Installation Guide K-Band FMCW Ranging Radar Built Types: PD420 Rev 1.4.2a DRAFT, September 11 2017 Open Frame PD420 Houston Radar LLC 12818 Century Drive, Stafford, TX 77477 Http://www.Houston-Radar.com Email: sales@Houston-Radar.com Contact: 1-888-602-3111...
- Page 2 This device complies with part 15 of the FCC Rules. Operation is subject to the following two conditions: (1) this device may not cause harmful interference, and (2) this device must accept any interference received, including interference that may cause undesired operation.
- Page 3 Warning: PD420 radar is supplied in an open frame format with exposed antenna and electronics and thus is a static sensitive device. Please use static precautions when handling. Warranty does not cover damage caused by inadequate ESD procedures and practices.
- Page 4 Side firing installations ..................... 18 Front firing installations ................... 18 Mounting the PD420 (38x45 deg beam angle) ............18 Mounting the PD420 (20x60deg beam angle) ..... Error! Bookmark not defined. Mounting Bracket...................... 19 Location ........................19 Setback and Mounting Height ................... 19 .........................
- Page 5 PD420 or SS300 radars. Light Sensor and brightness control is applicable only to the SS300 radar......................39 Isolated Solid-State Relay version, AC or DC capable. May be used with PD420 or SS300 radars ......................40 APPENDIX C: KEEPING TIME WITH AN EXTERNAL CLOCK BACKUP BATTERY ........................
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Page 6: Introduction
Some of the highlights of this product include: World’s smallest and lowest power usage ranging FMCW radar. At 0.35 Watts PD420 requires 10 to 20 times less power than competing products. Well suited for solar and battery powered installations. -
Page 7: Principle Of Operation
The radar detection zone has an oval shape and is defined by the beam cone (38ºx45º for PD420, 20ºx60º for PD420) and incident angle to the road surface. Note that the beam does not cutoff abruptly at the boundary of the detection zone but rather gradually tapers off. - Page 8 Also note that the radar beam is wider in one direction and the fundamental operation of the radar is not affected by the mounting orientation. This fact may be used to either widen or narrow the detection zone in the direction that matters. For a wider horizontal detection zone, mount the radar with the wider beam in the horizontal direction.
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Page 9: R Adar P Ointing
Radar Pointing The radar beam may be pointed across the traffic at 90º to the road or in line with traffic into incoming or outgoing traffic. Pointing the radar at an angle substantially different from 90º or 0º is not recommended because the signal strength is severely reduced. -
Page 10: Choosing A Ctc Value
You MUST issue the “Initialize Clutter” command via the provided GUI after you have setup the radar in the intended location. You MUST reissue this command if you change the operating mode of the radar, as the clutter map will be considerably different. You MUST reissue this command after you adjust the radar pointing, height or angle on the road. -
Page 11: O Perating M Odes
Operating Modes The radar can be configured to function in different operating modes that are optimized for various applications. Current firmware supports two pre-programmed modes: “Highway” and “Intersection”. For the best performance an appropriate mode should be selected by the user depending on their intended application. Highway mode (side firing only) To take advantage of this mode the radar must be deployed in a side firing installation so that it looks across the road and NOT directly into incoming or receding traffic. -
Page 12: U Ser C Onfigurable D Etection L Anes
An external controller communicates with the radar via the Houston Radar Binary protocol. The same protocol is used to communicate to all radars (Doppler and FMCW) produced by Houston Radar. Please contact us for an SDK (software development kit) if you wish to utilize this feature. -
Page 13: Historical Lane Counts
When radars are located close to each other and point in the same direction they may interfere with each other unless their frequency sweeps are synchronized. PD420 provide facility to synchronize two or more radars in a “single master, one or more slaves”... -
Page 14: R Adar C Onfiguration And D Ata V Ariables
Configuration parameters are stored in persistent variables. The easiest way to configure the radar is to use supplied Houston Radar Windows Configuration Utility. It will present you with a set of easy to understand configuration options. Once the user makes his selection, the Configuration Utility converts user specified options into a set of configuration variables and stores them in the radar. -
Page 15: I Nternal C Lock
Internal Clock The radar has a built in clock/calendar function. This is used to keep the time for time stamping historical records saved by the Advanced In-Radar traffic statistics collection feature. Because the radar is potted it does not feature a built-in clock backup battery. The power must remain on for the clock to keep time. - Page 16 Streaming ASCII Data Besides lane status streaming over binary protocol, the radar may be programed to stream certain types of data in ASCII format on its own, without receiving any further requests from the user. The output is produced on a periodic or event driven basis. The following data types are supported: ...
- Page 17 1. Set MD variable to value 0+2^6=64 set:MD 64 2. Observe radar output. You will see LN printouts every time the radar detects a vehicle in lane N (N=1..6). For example, if radar first detects vehicle in lane 3 and then another vehicle in lane 5, the printout will contain two lines and look like:...
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Page 18: Installation
Radar Mounting Beam pattern and enclosure PD420 and PD420 radars feature asymmetric beam patterns and can be supplied in either open frame or weatherproof version. Your intended application will determine the choice of the case type, beam pattern and beam rotation. -
Page 19: Location
Mounting Bracket Mounting bracket should allow for sufficient adjustment of the radar pointing angle and height. At the very minimum some degree of adjustment for the vertical angle should be provided. The user must perform a “boresight” check to validate that the radar beam is pointed correctly. -
Page 20: Hookup
Hookup Power Input: The PD420 radar features wide operating input voltage range of 5.5V-18V. In a typical application it may be powered from a nominal 12V DC source and will feature best in class operational power consumption of 30mA (PD420, average). There is no other FMCW ranging radar in the world that comes close to this ultra-low power usage. -
Page 21: Connector Pinout
communication parameters are factory set to the following defaults: 115200 baud, 8 data bit, 1 stop bit and no parity. This configuration may be changed by user to some other appropriate combination. However, be aware that when target streaming is enabled the radar sends out massive amounts of data that cannot be transferred with low baud rate. - Page 22 Note3: O/P 4 output is not available in units that have the “SYNC” option. Instead this pin is used to synchronize master and slave units.
- Page 23 Analyzer. Note: only newer versions of Configuration Utility and Stats Analyzer support PD420. Please contact Houston Radar for the latest version if a disk was not shipped with your radar or you have misplaced it. Green LED flashes when radar is running giving a visual indication of the system status.
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Page 24: Selecting An Operating Mode
Selecting an Operating Mode Use provided Windows Configuration Utility to set an appropriate mode of operation as recommended in Operating Mode section. Use Highway Mode where precise counting of the vehicles is important. Use Intersection Mode where reliable detection of the stopped or slow moving traffic is important Selecting Clutter Time Constant and Performing Clutter Initialization Use provided Windows Configuration Utility to set clutter time constant (CTC). -
Page 25: Optimal Performance Checklist
Appropriate background clutter compensation time constant must be selected and clutter map initialized. Lanes should be configured and stored in the radar. Illustration of PD420 in side-firing intersection Illustration of rotated PD420 in side-firing mode with maximum depth of view. intersection mode with maximum width of view. -
Page 26: S Ynchronizing M Ultiple R Adars
Synchronizing Multiple Radars When multiple radars are co-located it may be necessary to synchronize their frequency sweeps. If this functionality is desired, please order the radars with the “sync” option. When ordered with this option, digital output 4 is utilized for SYNC purposes and is not available as an open drain trigger output. -
Page 27: Using Windows Configuration Utility
8. Click on OK. Now you are ready to configure the radar. 9. Use PD420 Setup tab to select and save configuration options. See a screen snapshot below. 10. Lane configuration is done via PD420 Plot tab. See a screen snapshot below. -
Page 28: Pd420 Basic Application Setup
“Initialize Clutter” button in the screen shown above. If you now click over the “PD420 Plot” window, no new targets should be streaming from the x=0 (right most) side. Of course you may still have older targets showing on the plot but they will scroll off eventually off the left side of the chart. -
Page 29: Pd420 Target Verification And Lane Setup
After selecting the application (“Highway” or “Intersection”) and initializing the background clutter map in the PD420 Setup Tab, click on the “PD420 Plot” tab. This will bring up a real time “chart recorder” type plot of tracked targets as shown below. - Page 30 Check Target Signal Strength: A very weak target. Only 5 empty RSS bars. Will be first to fade away into background clutter. Targets are plotted in real time as red lines and scroll from the right to the left. Long lines as shown represent stationary targets (this plot was taken inside a room.
- Page 31 Excellent return signal strength from this vehicle on the road. Enable “Show Histograms” to observe where targets are appearing on the range plot. This will help you define lanes. Typical Real Time Chart Recorder View of “Highway Mode” Targets observed in the last 5 seconds show up as red tracks while older targets that have already scrolled off the screen are contributing to the height of the blue histograms on the screen left.
- Page 32 PD420 Live Lane Setup Step-By-Step Example: Right click on chart background to access lane setup Real targets are streaming context menu. Then select either “Define new Lane” if no lanes are by. Setting up lanes is as present or “Edit Lane(s)…” if lanes have already been easy as drawing around them on this chart.
- Page 33 PD420 Live Lane Setup Step-By-Step Example Continued… This road has 4 lanes (gray) with a median in between (white). Even though targets (sometimes double reflections or a curb or a lane divider) may be detected as red line in the median, they will...
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Page 34: In-Radar Lane-By-Lane Counts
There is adequate memory to save the last 4+ months of data. After that the log will roll over and start overwriting the oldest data. On a typical road with a free flowing traffic, the PD420 can be better than 98% accurate on a lane-by-lane basis and better than 99% accurate on a direction basis. -
Page 35: Reading Historical Counts Out Of The Radar
One the data is read from the radar it is stored as a native .dat file that may be imported later into the Houston Radar Stats Analyzer and also as a .csv file (in the same folder with the same name but with a .csv extension) that may be imported into Excel for further... -
Page 36: Pd420 Specifications
5.5V DC to 18V DC Reverse Battery Protected Power Consumption 0.35 W (PD420) Nominal Current @12V 28 mA typ avg (PD420) Operating Temp. -22F to +185F (-30C to +85C) Electronics designed and tested to –40C Weatherproof Yes, PD420-DFT/PD420-DFT build option... -
Page 37: Appendix A: Using Trigger Outputs
Houston Radar PD420 User Manual Appendix A: Using trigger outputs The radars feature six low impedance “open drain” outputs that can trigger/turn on an external device when a vehicle is detected in a combination of user defined lanes. When a vehicle is detected in a lane and this lane is mapped to a trigger output, that output is pulled down to GND and held low as long as a vehicle is tracked in that lane. - Page 38 Houston Radar PD420 User Manual +Vhead +Vhead Load Load Load rated to draw Load Method 2 max of 150mA at Method 1 +Vhead max Resistor Page 38 of 46...
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Page 39: Appendix B: Optional Breakout Board
Houston Radar PD420 User Manual Appendix B: Optional Breakout Board Non-Isolated Mosfet version with PWM Brightness Control. May be used with PD420 or SS300 radars. Light Sensor and brightness control is applicable only to the SS300 radar. Connecting the load to the High power and trigger outputs: You may directly connect your high power DC load + &... -
Page 40: Isolated Solid-State Relay Version, Ac Or Dc Capable. May Be Used With Pd420 Or Ss300 Radars
Houston Radar PD420 User Manual Isolated Solid-State Relay version, AC or DC capable. May be used with PD420 or SS300 radars Optional Isolated IO Board. Note: PWM Brightness Control is NOT available with Isolated AC/DC Relay outputs. Page 40 of 46... - Page 41 The time is initially set from an external controller, typically a PC running Houston Radar configuration or stats analyzer software. If the PD420 is used in a configuration that may disrupt power, an external clock backup battery must be connected as suggested below.
- Page 42 PD420/PNL10 into low power sleep mode May NOT be removed if when turned OFF. Zenner still provides time is to be maintained enough voltage and current to allow PD420 to when switch is in OFF keep time with minimal power usage. position.
- Page 43 Appendix D: Recommended Enclosure for Open Frame Radars The PD420-OFD/PD420-OFD open frame radar needs to be enclosed in a weatherproof enclosure for outside use. The following needs to be observed for optimal performance: 1. The front face of the radar (PCB with the golden pads) is the antenna and is the face that must point towards traffic.
- Page 44 Houston Radar PD420 User Manual Appendix E: ASCII Interface Some of the radar features can be accessed from ASCII command line interface over the serial port. For example all the radar variables can be set and queried in this fashion.
- Page 45 Houston Radar PD420 User Manual sets the low speed cutoff to 5 etc. Note: Variables are case sensitive. Commands are not. Success is indicated by an "OK". Failure is indicated by either: "ERROR" - Command was recognized but some other error occurred, e.g. variable not present, format not correct, etc.
- Page 46 Houston Radar PD420 User Manual HO - hold C1...C6 - realtime counts per lane O1...O6 - realtime occupancy indicators per lane S1...S6 – reserved - reserved - status variable Page 46 of 46...
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