Platform Selection is one of the most crucial steps in the design life cycle. Once a mature system block diagram gets finalized from the second step, the important task is selection of the system blocks/subsystems based on performance requirements. TI's wide portfolio of mmWave Radar sensors can help achieve many performance requirements such as long-range or medium-range, angular resolution, range resolution, velocity resolution and so on.

For developing a FuSa compliant mmWave Radar sensor system, TI mmWave Radar sensors becomes the first choice to customers because of their versatile nature for vast applications and the availability of essential collaterals. TI mmWave Radar sensors uses FMCW for sensing the range, velocity and angle of multiple targets with better resolutions. TI mmWave Radar sensors mainly classify as Automotive and Industrial products based on the end application. TI mmWave Radar sensors are developed utilizing the Safety Element out of Context (SEooC) concept that allowed TI to develop systems independently with a view of assumed hazards, risks and FuSa standards suitable for vast safety critical applications. mmWave Radar sensors range from highly accurate front-end types to highly integrable complex SoC types with HWA for faster computations. mmWave Radar sensors certified with functional safety support the hardware integrity level up to ASIL-B or SIL-2. mmWave Radar sensors with non-functional safety variants are also available to the customers.

The versatility of the TI mmWave Radar sensor operation is programmable for detecting targets within the specified limits as per the customer's requirement that are good enough for typical automotive and industrial applications. TI mmWave Radar sensors supports operating radio frequency ranges of 76-81GHz and 57-64GHz for automotive and industrial domain applications complying with government regulations such as FCC, ETSI and TRAI. High-performance TI mmWave Radar sensors are incorporated with HWA in the design for faster computations improving the response time. TI mmWave Radar sensors support many communication interfaces with peripherals (some maybe only debug) like SPI, QSPI, I2C, CAN, LIN, RS232, GPIO, CSI2, PWM, GPADC, DMM, JTAG and so on specified in the datasheet of the mmWave Radar sensor.

TI mmWave Radar sensors also have variants with device security consisting of Hardware Security Module (HSM) supported by crypto hardware accelerators aiding secure authenticated and encrypted boot support and custom programmable root keys with key revocation capability. Thus, TI mmWave Radar sensors can be integrated into various highly integrated, distributed system applications such as automotive braking and steering systems, corner radar of car, industrial automation and drives, industrial robot sensor system for safer human presence detection and many others.

For ex., to design a corner radar of a car for safety applications, functional safety compliance of sensor system's hardware blocks/subsystems such as TI mmWave Radar sensor and Power supply block is crucial. The mmWave Radar sensor should possess some mandatory characteristics to be used in the FuSa compliant sensor system. The comparison table for few mandatory characteristics of the mmWave Radar sensor in FuSa compliant sensor system and TI's AWR2944 mmWave Radar sensor's best characteristics is mentioned below to check whether AWR2944 can be used in Corner Radar of a car.

All the characteristics of AWR2944 look compatible with the below mentioned mandatory requirements in Table 2-1, which makes AWR2944 suitable for this FuSa compliant Corner Radar sensor system.

Similarly, to design an Industrial Robot Sensor System for safer human presence detection, the system application requires safety related Hardware elements/blocks like TI mmWave Radar sensor to be FuSa compliant. Similar to the previous case, the mmWave Radar sensor must have some mandatory characteristics for its inclusion in the FuSa compliant sensor system. As an example, few mandatory requirements for the system are compared with the TI's IWRL6432 mmWave Radar sensor's best values for its inclusion in the system application. The comparison can be checked in the following table.

The requirements of a mmWave Radar sensor for safer human presence detection are fulfilled by the IWRL6432 Radar sensor with respect to the above requirements mentioned in Table 2-2. As industrial robots might work continuously for longer duration, TI's IWRL6432 being a low power consumption device becomes an added advantage for the system. Please note that the parameters like range, velocity , angle and their resolutions of mmWave radar sensor are also dependent on the system's antenna design. So far, we have been discussing about the mmWave Radar sensor platform selection in FuSa system. In a similar way, the remaining blocks of the system must be compared with the system requirements and the decision to select the platform should be done wisely. All the safety hardware blocks of the sensor system must comply with safety standards for the successful FuSa certification of the system. All the components should have essential collaterals that are mandatory for the system's safety certification process. Please note that currently AWR2944 and IWRL6432 are FuSa targeted and the author is confident that FuSa certification for the device will be available in a short time.

The following documents come under essential collaterals, which are available for FuSa complaint TI mmWave Radar sensors like

• FMEDA(Failure Mode, Effect and Diagnostic Analysis)
• Safety Analysis Report(SAR)
• Functional Safety Manual(FSM)
• Functional Safety Certificate
• Test reports of the Firmware block
• Compliance support package

For FuSa-compliant sensor system, all the hardware, software and firmware blocks of the system/subsystems have to comply with FuSa standards and essential FuSa collaterals have to be available. For ex., mmWave Radar sensor should be checked for FuSa compliance and the availability of essential FuSa collaterals. The essential collaterals of system blocks, required for the successful FuSa certification of the system are mentioned briefly in this Figure 2-6.

Software-related safety enablers like Functional Safety Diagnostic Software Library, Safety Compiler Qualification Kit and Safety software sequence document are only disclosed to the customers on request through mySecureSoftware. With all the FuSa requirements fulfillment, TI's mmWave Radar sensors becomes a great choice for sensing targets in Radar sensor system applications. For TI mmWave Radar sensor functional safety enablers, visit here. All the essential collaterals of the TI mmWave Radar sensor are provided to the customer through the TI website on respective product page or through mySecureSoftware for confidential FuSa collaterals. Similarly for the various blocks of the system, TI's wide product portfolio could be a solution. For ex., TI PMIC(LP87745-Q1) is the better choice for power supply in the FuSa system because of the FuSa compliance and the availability of essential FuSa collaterals.

Key Deliverables from the "Step-3: Platform Selection" are the selection of each of the blocks or components of the FuSa compliant sensor system meeting the end equipment functional and behavioural requirements, compliance with applicable FuSa standards with the availability of essential FuSa collaterals that supports FuSa certification of system.