SparkFun Pulsed Radar Breakout - A111

The SparkFun A111 Pulsed Radar Breakout is a single-chip solution for pulsed coherent radar (PCR) that offers high-precision distance measurement, motion detection, speed sensing, and gesture recognition. This advanced sensor operates at 60GHz radar frequency and comes with an integrated antenna and an SPI interface capable of clock speeds up to 50MHz. The A111 can detect distances of up to 2 meters, making it ideal for various applications.

The SparkFun A111 Pulsed Radar Breakout is equipped with a 1.8V regulator and voltage-level translation, and it exposes all the pins of the radar sensor to both 2.54mm headers and Raspberry Pi-friendly headers. The Breakout is designed to sit directly on top of a Raspberry Pi, and while it doesn't cover all 40 pins of a Raspberry Pi B+ (or later), the 26-pin -- 2x13 -- header should be compatible with any Pi.

Acconeer has created a Python-based visualization tool that showcases real-time data collection using the A111 Pulsed Radar. The tool provides valuable insights like distance or presence sensing, the number of sweeps, and the communication port (SPI or I2C) data is being sent through. It supports both Windows and Linux and requires Python version 3.6 or later.

Please note that the A111 Pulsed Radar Breakout does not include a Raspberry Pi, which will need to be purchased separately. Also, the A111 is designed to work with an ARMv7 at a minimum. It has been tested and found to work with the Raspberry Pi 3, 3B+, and 4.

Each purchase includes a SparkFun Pulsed Radar Breakout Board - A111 and a Female Header - 26-pin (2x13).

The A111 Pulsed Radar Breakout features a 60 GHz Pulsed Coherent Radar (PCR) sensor, an integrated antenna, a measurement distance up to 2m, accuracy down to mm-range, an SPI interface with up to 50MHz SPI clock support, all SPI pins broken out, an on-board 1.8V voltage regulator, 1.8V level translation to any voltage between 1.8V-5V, and a bypass jumper.

The v1.1 revision of the A111 Pulsed Radar Breakout includes minor changes such as a PTH for VCCIO, a bypass jumper to set VCCIO to VIN, a silkscreen name change for input voltage (5V => VIN), and improved logic level translation on the Raspberry Pi side.

Additional resources such as the schematic, Eagle files, board dimensions, a getting started guide, and the Python Exploration Tool on Github can be found on SparkFun's website.