Senior 2 Project, Group 2B: Speed radar gun
Rodriguez, Antonio ; Touthang, James ; Liang, Jingkun ; Campbell, Rachel
Citations
Abstract
Our purpose was to create a Doppler radar gun within one semester using a budget of $250. Our radar gun can be broken down into five subsystems, specifically the antenna and transceiver, amplifier and filter circuit, microcontroller, power, and outer casing subsystems. We chose the MACOM transceiver joined to a coated horn antenna to send and receive signals and produce our intermediate or Doppler frequency. Our aplifier and filter circuit used the MAX414CPD operational amplifier for its high performance and low noise. Our bandpass filter has ideal cut off frequencies at 700 Hz and 7300 Hz, which allows us to accurately measure speeds between 10 and 100 mph. The actual cut off frequencies of out filter circuit were 884 Hz and 10.6 Hz, to compensate for a more gradual cutoff slope. The total gain of our amplifier and filter circuit is approximately 7700. We chose the Arduino as the controller for our radar gun and used the FHT library to determine the true Doppler frequency from a given intermediate frequency. The Arduino also computes the speed from the Doppler frequency and displays the speed in mph and Km/hr on the LCD. The power for the radar gun is supplied by two 9V batteries which allow for over 2 hours of continuous runtime. Finally, the outer casing was created using Solidworks modeling and 3d printing. Our testing of our completed Doppler radar gun showed that the gun can measure ball speeds from 10 - 46 mph (this is not the limit of the radar gun's capabilities, only the limit of our throwing speed) at a range of 0.5 - 50 feet with an accuracy of approximately plus or minus 1 mph. Our radar gun meets all required specifications and performs admirably in real world conditions.