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uwb:evb

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Ultra Wideband Evaluation Board

- Optimized RF Design for Maximum Coverage

Neil Hao

Starts from 2021/Aug/02 to 2023/02/11 17:30 (Last Modification)

Overview

This project aims to design an UWB evaluation board based on Qorvo’s DW1000 Ultra-Wideband Transceiver IC for real time location system (RTLS) applications.

Following topics are studied in this project:

  • UWB Front-End Design
  • Omnidirectional/Directional UWB Antenna Design

Hardware Design

UWB Front-End Design

Fig.1 UWB Front-End Design

According to the datasheet, DW1000's optimized load impedance is differential 100 Ohm. Thus, the impedance needs to be matched from differential 100 Ohm to single end 50 Ohms and the impedance bandwidth also requires covering 3000Mhz to 7000Mhz.

Fortunately, multi-layer balun HHM1595A1 is capable to meet above impedance matching requirements. The theoretical performance is shown in Fig.2. Fig.2 HHM1595A1's Theoretical Performance

According to HHM1595A1's performance, the design will be almost no challenge once the SMA connector is not necessary. However, the SMA connector is required by this evaluation board, because several UWB Antenna Designs need to be evaluated by this board. The Performance comparison between “With SMA connector but no optimization” and “Without SMA connector” is shown in Fig.3. Fig.3 The Performance comparison between “With SMA connector but no optimization” (Left) and “Without SMA connector” (Right)

Due to impedance mismatching at point M, the performance is downgraded significantly because of the SMA connector. The impedance mismatching can be solved by building a matching circuit using inductor and capacitor. However, this method will be either downgrading the impedance bandwidth or enlarging the PCB footprint. For balancing between the impedance bandwidth and PCB footprint, the impedance mismatching can also be eliminated by adjusting the distance between the microstrip line and the reference plane. For the multi-layer PCB, we just need to select the layer stack carefully and cut suitable slot between the microstrip line and the GND plane under the SMA connector (Fig.4). The Insertion Loss comparison between “Without Slot” and “With Slot” is shown in Fig.5. Fig.4 Four layers design with a slot on the second layer under SMA connector Fig.5 The Insertion Loss comparison between “Without Slot” (Left) and “With Slot” (Right)

The Insertion Loss is improved about 1.5dB to 2.5dB across the impedance bandwidth by the slot. The Insertion Loss of the slot edition is as small as ignorable. Therefore, we could conclude the impedance mismatching is eliminated by slot.

Omnidirectional UWB Antenna Design

Symmetric Antenna

Rectangular slot notching onto the radiator and attaching a strip to the radiator can reduce the size of the antenna [2]. This antenna is printed on a 30mm*32mm PCB with desirable symmetrical radiation pattern.

Antenna Parameters

S11

Radiation Pattern

3D @ 4GHz: 3GHz: 4GHz: 5GHz: 6GHz: 7GHz:

Radiation Efficiency

Directional UWB Antenna Design

Software Design

Experiments

Resource

Schematics

Project Name # Description Project Home Page
ESP32 Flash Download Tool ESP32 Flash Download Tool

Datasheets

Mfr. Part # Description Datasheet
DW1000 The DW1000 is a fully integrated single chip Ultra Wideband (UWB) low-power low-cost transceiver IC compliant to IEEE802.15.4-2011. dw1000-datasheet-v2.09.pdf
HHM1595A1 Multilayer Balun For 3000–8000MHz. rf_balun_hhm1595a1_en.pdf

Reference

[1] Anurag Bhargava. RF Design-20: Mitigating Impedance Mismatch due to SMD Pads in RF/Microwave and High Speed Boards. Retrieved Aug 02, 2021, from https://youtu.be/ysaiwtnCrlE

[2] Zhi Ning Chen; Terence S. P. See; Xianming Qing. Small Printed Ultrawideband Antenna With Reduced Ground Plane Effect. Retrieved Aug 07, 2021, from https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/4084807

uwb/evb.1628339178.txt.gz · Last modified: 2023/02/11 17:30 (external edit)

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