Guide by Jaryd; How to add mmWave Radar to a Pico | Detect and Track Humans

Guides
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Hey forum goers,

Got another mmWave guide, this time for the Raspberry Pi Pico. This little mmWave sensor is ridiculously handy as it can detect and track humans and is super easy to use. This time we set up multi-target tracking and create a fun little gizmo that measures your sprinting speed and compares it to Usain Bolt’s. Get amongst it: “How to add mmWave Radar to a Pico | Detect and Track Humans”





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G’day, Jarrad. Can you tell me if it’s possible to rig up the tiny Doppler unit to an ESP32-C3 Super Mini? I’ve got about 7 spare ones sitting in my toy box [I have ESPs of all sorts all over the lab, lol]. I only have 1 x Pico and 1 x Pico 2, and I have projects for them already, but the super minis are just sitting there waiting for a project.

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Hey @KellyLeigh296001, welcome to the forums!

It should definitely be possible to get them going with that board, but there might be a tad bit of modification required.

I think it would be easiest to follow along from the Pico guide, so you would need to start by flashing MicroPython onto your ESPs.

Then you should be able to follow along with the guide as normal, but you will need to connect the radar to the UART pins of your ESP32. I think it’s tx=pin 21 and rx=pin 20 on that board. would need to verify with a pinout diagram.

The final thing you would need to do is modify the library to use the new UART pins you are using. If you open the library folder and go to line 23, you should see the following line:

    def __init__(self, uart_id=0, tx_pin=0, rx_pin=1, multi_mode=True):

And you would just need to set your new tx and rx pins in there. Let us know how you go. I think this is all you need to do? Might be one or two more gotchas.

Cheers!

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Awesome. Thank you for that information, Jarryd…and apologies for misspelling your name the first time around.

By the way, I’m totally stoked with my new RPi500+ purchased from you guys last week. It arrived here supersonically fast! Saturday arvo I took delivery down here in the ACT after only ordering it late Thursday night!
Thank you @ Core Electronics. One can never have too many Pi Babies, ESP Babies, Arduino Babies, etc. :smiley: My smurfs don’t agree - they think I have sufficient Pi babies already, and pointed out that “Kelly, you don’t have any more powerpoints left to plug anything else into!!” They’re not completely wrong there. I do need to build my own small solar powered powerstation in the backyard to run more Pi babies.

Happy Solstice, Hannika, Xmas - whatever is your thing - to all the crew at Core Electronics.

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