TI mmWave Radar: understanding Relative Power (dB) using RangeProfile

Using a TI IWR6843ISK evaluation board, I would like to understand the returned power from the RangeProfile field of the measurements object. For example:

xdat = meas.RangeGrid;
ydat = meas.RangeProfile;
plot(xdat,ydat);

will return a plot with Relative-power (dB) vs. Range (m) similar to 10-29 in Radar Toolbox User's Guide. This is not an absolute power (dBm), so what is this power measurment relative to? Is this explained in documentation someplace?

Thanks for any help.

Khan

Answer 1

[Shantanu]

Hi Khan,

When using a TI mmWave radar like the IWR6843ISK with MATLAB, the RangeProfile field provides a measure of the radar reflection strength at different distances. The y-axis of this plot, labeled "Relative-power (dB)".

For a practical example of how to read and plot this data, you can refer to the given documentation. The "Read and Plot Position and Range Profile" section is particularly relevant.

https://www.mathworks.com/help/radar/ug/getting-started-timmwaveradar-example.html#GettingStartedTexasInstrumentsMmWaveRadarSensorsExample-11

Hope this helps.