3 Demo Kit Software Application

The ATA8352 device is a low-power Ultra-Wide-Band (UWB) transceiver with an integrated security layer for secure distance bounding, ranging, localization and point-to-point data communication.

The ATA8352 Impulse-Radio Ultra-Wideband (IR_UWB) Transceiver Data Sheet and ATA8352 Impulse-Radio Ultra-Wideband (IR_UWB) Transceiver User's Guide describe this distance bounding application using Verifier and Prover modes and the data communication with RX and TX modes. The ATA8352 TDoA Application Note describes ranging and localization applications. The TDoA mode uses the data communication with RX and TX modes together with the capability of the device to capture timestamps during transmission and reception. These timestamps will be used for ranging measurements in TDoA and TWS applications. For more information, refer to TDoA Demo Software for ATA8352 UWB Demo Kit and DS-TWR Demo Software for ATA8352 UWB Demo Kit.

The demo kit for the UWB ATA8352 device includes two UWB nodes using an XplainedPro SAM C21 MCU board with an attached UWB ATA8352 Break-out board Xplained Pro. One board acts as a Prover device, shown in Figure 3-1, and the other as a Verifier device, shown in Figure 3-2. The difference between the nodes is that the Verifier node includes an OLED board to display the measurement results. For more details, refer to the ATA8352 Impulse-Radio Ultra-Wideband (IR-UWB) Transceiver User's Guide.

Figure 3-1. UWB Prover Node
Figure 3-2. UWB Verifier Node

The following figure illustrates how to perform the distance bounding measurement. The Verifier node initiates the distance measurement and the Prover node responds to the signal. The ATA8352 hardware automatically triggers the measurement; in other words, when the data telegram transmission starts. The Verifier starts in the Verifier mode, initiates transmission and starts the measurement. The Prover node starts in the Prover mode, listens to the incoming data telegrams with a predefined SSID header and responds to the Verifier. The devices automatically switch the modes from transmitter to receiver (Verifier) and receiver to transmitter (Prover) after the first data telegram. Once the Verifier node receives the Prover response, the ATA8352 calculates the distance and displays the results on the OLED. The device repeats the measurement after 0.5s and displays on the OLED.

Figure 3-3. Distance Bounding Measurement

The following figure illustrates the data telegrams used during the measurement including the turnaround time (treply) to switch the receiver and transmitter modes.

Figure 3-4. Data Telegrams

Use Microchip Studio for the development of the software application for the Prover and Verifier nodes, as shown in Figure 3-5. The following shows the structure of the UWB application software:

  • Prover application layer
    • main_prover
    • uwb_prover_app.c
    • uwb_prover_app.h
  • Verifier application layer
    • main_verifier
    • uwb_verifier_app.c
    • uwb_verifier_app.h
  • UWB driver functions (common for Prover and Verifier nodes)
    • uwb_driver.c
    • uwb_driver.h
    • uwb_config.h
  • UWB default register settings (common for Prover and Verifier nodes)
    • uwb_default.h

The Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL) is located in the following files:

  • hal/hal.c
  • hal/hal.h
  • hal/hal_config.h

The software application also includes the basic functions (HAL) for the selected MCU. In other words, the user must modify these functions when porting the application to another MCU.

Figure 3-5. Microchip Studio Solution with Prover and Verifier Project