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A quick little video, and new IF filter/amp prototype

A project log for Simple, low-cost FMCW radar

A basic radar system makes radar accessible at low cost for experiments with rangefinding & navigation of autonomous aircraft or spacecraft.

luke-westonLuke Weston 07/21/2014 at 11:340 Comments

Here's a quick little video showing the current state of the prototype hardware.

I re-built another prototype of the IF filter/amplifier stage because I wasn't really happy with the previous one and wanted to make some design tweaks to get the best possible results using the component stock I had on hand. This one is a perf-board job since I wanted something to show relatively quickly before ordering more PCBs fabbed.

Now the IF filter/amplifier is working well, (tested up to 100 kHz with a function generator, with strong roll-off in the LPF as you go far above 25 kHz or so) along with the ramp generator, but I think there's a problem in the RF stage so unfortunately I can't show a fully working system delivering results at this time. And unfortunately, without a 6 GHz spectrum analyser, it's hard to show just the microwave VCO working, or something like that - it's really "all or nothing" in order to show the working results coming out of the mixer.

Thanks for following! :)

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