DW3120 Evaluation board? (equivalent to DWM300EVB)

Hi,

So far I have the Nordic NRF52840 with the DWM3000EVB working correctly to get distance between UWB devices.

I now want to get angle of arrival (AOA) / direction measurements. From what I can tell, this isn’t possible with the DW3110 in the 3000EVB because it requires two antennas. It does look like this is possible with the DW3120 and DW3220. But I can’t find an evaluation board for the DW3120.

I’ve done a lot of research, but I need some guidance on two questions.

Question 1: Is there an evaluation board anywhere that uses the DW3120?

I’ve found the QM33120WDK1 development kit, which contains a QM33120WEVB board that looks like what I want, except this kit is like 10-15x more expensive and contains a lot of stuff I don’t need. I can’t find how to buy the QM33120WEVB on its own.

Question 2: What are my options for getting a dual-antenna setup working for prototyping?

I think my options are the following (I’m not sure if any of these are actually feasible):

  1. make a custom PCB that incorporates the DW3120 and two antennas
  2. somehow connect up two DW3000EVBs to the NRF52840 and do my own AoA calculations (can you stack the Arduino shields?)
  3. buy the expensive QM33120WDK1 which the QM33120WEVB that comes with it might not do what I want

Any guidance would be super helpful! I’ve done a lot of software engineering but this is my first hardware project so I’m really enjoying learning about everything

Thanks very much!

Just an update after researching some more. Murata looks like they’re developing a module and evaluation board that would fit this need (Murata Type 2AB module and evaluation board LBUA5QJ2AB-828EVB). Unfortunately these don’t look like they’re easy to buy anywhere, so I’ll probably take the route of designing a custom PCB.

Hi @mp95
the 2AB module is easy to use but I have no idea how hard it is to get some.

However the DW3120 is a CSP footprint (very tiny one) and you need to have a lot of skills to make a custom HDI PCB and that PCB is also expensive. I would not recommend you to go this way unless you have a huge amount of free time and some money to spent for PCB & PCBA services.

Cheers
JK

Thanks so much for the response! Sorry – my initial post was misleading – for the custom PCB option, I was planning to use the DW3220 which comes in a QFN-40 package. Is this more viable for at-home soldering, or is it still unfeasible? I was planning to use either a hot air station or oven for the reflow.

Hi,

The murata 2ab devkit is currently available at e.g. Mouser, I ordered mine from them:

https://www2.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Murata-Electronics/LBUA5QJ2AB-828EVB?qs=T%252BzbugeAwjitTtYINwZLlQ%3D%3D

It’s still expensive, but not as much as the QM33120WDK1 development kit.

Thanks so much for the heads up! I’ll grab one now :slight_smile: