Houston Radar PD420, User Manual And Installation Manual

Page 1: ...ion Guide K Band FMCW Ranging Radar Built Types PD420 Rev 1 4 2a DRAFT September 11 2017 Houston Radar LLC 12818 Century Drive Stafford TX 77477 Http www Houston Radar com Email sales Houston Radar co...

Page 2: ...signed to provide reasonable protection against harmful interference in a residential installation This equipment generates uses and can radiate radio frequency energy and if not installed and used in...

Page 3: ...nd 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 Note Specifications ma...

Page 4: ...2 Trigger Pulse Extension 12 Lane Status over RS232 12 Lane Setup 12 Historical Lane Counts 13 CO LOCATED RADARS 13 RADAR RANGE RESOLUTION 13 RADAR CONFIGURATION AND DATA VARIABLES 14 INTERNAL CLOCK 1...

Page 5: ...Time Occupancy Indicators experimental 15 PD420 SPECIFICATIONS 36 GENERAL 36 APPROVALS 36 DATA INTERFACES 36 MECHANICAL 36 APPENDIX A USING TRIGGER OUTPUTS 37 APPENDIX B OPTIONAL BREAKOUT BOARD 39 No...

Page 6: ...detection range Simultaneously detects tracks and reports up to six individual targets Six user configurable lanes allow assignment of targets to specific lanes Six hardware trigger outputs can be ma...

Page 7: ...ction zone has an oval shape and is defined by the beam cone 38 x45 for PD420 20 x60 for PD420 and incident angle to the road surface Note that the beam does not cutoff abruptly at the boundary of the...

Page 8: ...energy the target returns back to the radar This is one of the most important factors in reliable detection Simple rules of thumb are a Vehicle side typically has larger cross section than vehicle fro...

Page 9: ...nt CTC CTC specifies how long does it take for an average target to fade away into the background e g become part of the clutter map and no longer be reported as a valid target CTC is a user programma...

Page 10: ...ater than 28 minutes are not honored and are internally limited in the radar to 28 minutes Future versions of the radar firmware are expected to support CTC values of up to 6 hours to allow for incide...

Page 11: ...table for the radar to experience brief signal dropouts as the vehicle moves across the detection zone Intersection mode side or front firing Intersection mode is used for presence detection of stoppe...

Page 12: ...duration that is much longer than the vehicle presence time Lane Status over RS232 Target presence information in each lane lane activation status is also available in real time to an attached control...

Page 13: ...t delay between measurements Time lag should be set to a different value in each slave A 500 us increment from master to slave and from slave to slave is recommended but maximum lag value should not e...

Page 14: ...tion the Configuration Utility converts user specified options into a set of configuration variables and stores them in the radar Persistent variables are written to radar FLASH memory Do NOT update s...

Page 15: ...y Indicators experimental The radar keeps real time occupancy indicators on a lane by lane basis The values are periodically re calculated over a user configurable time interval specified in seconds v...

Page 16: ...ming of detection events set bit 6 in MD variable Clear this bit to disable detection event streaming Note bits are counted from 0 Bit 7 means adding actually OR ing 2 7 128 to MO value bit 10 means a...

Page 17: ...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 pri...

Page 18: ...beam component Front firing installations Alternatively the radar may be used in a front firing mode where it is pointed up or down the traffic However current versions of the radar firmware do not su...

Page 19: ...rpasses are not a good location for the radar Walls can bounce the radar beam and create ghost targets Note when beam bounce or multi pass propagation creates ghost targets it is sometimes possible to...

Page 20: ...oranging range hunting during measurements must be used Otherwise you will get instantaneous readings that will fluctuate from 3 mA to 40 mA Your power supply must be capable of supplying up to 40mA o...

Page 21: ...ed for lane setup via the supplied Configuration Utility Connector Pinout Note 1 See Appendix A for detailed description on how to hookup an external device to be triggered when radar detects presence...

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: ...RS232 interface to a Windows PC RS232 COM port or a USB to serial adapter and use Houston Radar Configuration Utility or Houston Radar Stats Analyzer Note only newer versions of Configuration Utility...

Page 24: ...radar about ten CTC to initialize the clutter map on its own and start operating normally but this delay will occur after every power cycle Do not re initialize clutter map on a regular e g every hou...

Page 25: ...vertical angle adjusted to cover all configured lanes Radar should be mounted high enough to see over the top of the highest expected target At least 17 feet of height is recommended in case of truck...

Page 26: ...n of the master unit is not affected Any unit may be configured as a master or a slave but in a synchronized system one and only one unit must be configured as master and all other units must be confi...

Page 27: ...e or back as the case may be flashes 4 Start the Houston Radar Stats Configuration tool program 5 Click on Start Connect to Radar 6 Click on Connect button 7 Ensure you see a Radar found on COM messag...

Page 28: ...r s view To do this ensure radar is securely mounted in desired position wait for the field in front of the radar to clear of any real targets and then click on the Initialize Clutter button in the sc...

Page 29: ...in front of it will be shown here as red lines The actual real time range is plotted Every red line is a target that is tracked by the radar The plot keeps track of a specified amount of history befor...

Page 30: ...mpensation time constant Thus it s very important to set the clutter time constant to a value that is at least 5 to 10 times longer than the normal expected presence time of targets in front of the ra...

Page 31: ...xt section Also note excellent signal strength from each of the shown targets Each red track a target has at least 3 or more filled RSS bars Lower signal strength may indicate a problem with radar ins...

Page 32: ...by left clicking the mouse button then place second boundary Lane is now defined between these two boundaries Once stop boundary is defined lane will fill with gray You can also draw around the built...

Page 33: ...the direction of the traffic you can split the screen in two in the center and start drawing some lane on the right side of the split to scroll the other way left to right T 0 now then becomes in the...

Page 34: ...ection basis For best accuracy the radar should be setup in highway mode and traffic must be moving faster than 7mph 11kph Note The radar keeps approximately the last one hour worth or records of data...

Page 35: ...xtension that may be imported into Excel for further analysis Once you connect to the radar these buttons will become active and you can use them to erase the stats log memory set the time in the rada...

Page 36: ...35 W PD420 Nominal Current 12V 28 mA typ avg PD420 Operating Temp 22 F to 185 F 30 C to 85 C Electronics designed and tested to 40C Weatherproof Yes PD420 DFT PD420 DFT build option No PD420 OFD PD42...

Page 37: ...vice that provides this functionality is the ON Semi NUD3124 relay driver Please refer to the datasheet for this device on detailed operating characteristics For a quick reference the internal diagram...

Page 38: ...Houston Radar PD420 User Manual Page 38 of 46 Load rated to draw max of 150mA at Vhead max Vhead Load Vhead Resistor Load Method 1 Load Method 2...

Page 39: ...ar Connecting the load to the High power and trigger outputs You may directly connect your high power DC load to J5 The load is activated via fuse F1 when the output is triggered You may directly conn...

Page 40: ...ser Manual Page 40 of 46 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 Isolate...

Page 41: ...e sleep region as shown in the provided diagram The radar will resume normal operation once the input VCC voltage returns to the Run region Step 2 Setup an arrangement to switch in a 4 5V to 6 8V cloc...

Page 42: ...ND Clock Backup Battery 4 7V to 6 7V assuming 0 2v diode drop Ensure it cannot be removed or disconnected Main Battery 8 6V to 18 V May be removed Backup battery will provide power to maintain clock L...

Page 43: ...an Polycarbonate plastic 5 The optimum thickness of the polycarbonate window is half wavelength at 24 125Ghz or about 3 5 to 3 7mm 0 137 to 0 146 thick a Alternatively a thin window of any plastic mat...

Page 44: ...Cr Examples 1 Get a single variable from default domain 0 get TC returns TC 5 if value is presently set to 5 2 Get 6 variables from domain 2 get C1 C2 C3 C4 C5 C6 2 will get the counts for all 6 lanes...

Page 45: ...e Enter key press should be replaced by a carriage return and or line feed ASCII character Note the radar may support other ASCII commands They are reserved for factory use Supported variables as of f...

Page 46: ...Houston Radar PD420 User Manual Page 46 of 46 HO hold C1 C6 realtime counts per lane O1 O6 realtime occupancy indicators per lane S1 S6 reserved bl reserved sr status variable...