UWB CH5 (DWM1001C) in Russia

Hi,

has anyone experience or information regarding employing an UWB system based on the DWM1001C chip (i.e. Channel 5 with smart tx power enabled) in Russia?

“ETSI TR 103 181-3” says something about Max mean e.i.r.p. (dBm /MHz) of -47. The DWM1001C module is not compliant with that I think?

Hi looki,

The TX power of the DWM1001 can be adjusted so it meets regulations. See APR003 Certification Guide Europe, APS012 DW1000 Production Tests and section 5.3.18 dwm_uwb_cfg_set in the DWM1001 firmware / PANS API guide.

Are you using PANS or your own firmware?

Note that reducing the TX power will off course reduce the operational range, but it should be possible to build a usable RTLS solution with the DWM1001 meeting Russia’s regulations.

We are working with our own firmware.

Adjusting the TX power has to be done for each and every dwm1001 device individually I guess? i.e. individual tx power calibration and storing the values in flash (otp memory cannot be used, was already written by decawave for the default -41.3 dBm / MHz case).
If my assumption is correct, it’s a lot of additional work and the advantage of using an already calibrated & certified product declines.

Anyway thanks for your reply!

Hi looki.

Adjusting the TX power has to be done for each and every dwm1001 device individually I guess.

No, the TX power can be the same for all products. TX power should not differ significantly between DWM1001 modules, you can (and should) just apply a small safety margin. This margin is also needed to account for environmental effects such as temperature and test equipment uncertainty (which is typically documented).

Our DWM1001C modules are certified for the European market, which it seems does not include Russia. It also only really applies if the same firmware and TX power settings are used, that’s what the “when used in conjunction with Decawave approved software and in accordance with Decawave instructions” bit means in the DWM1001 EU declaration of conformity.

Certification is mainly an exercise in proving due diligence. You follow guidelines to show that under certain typical conditions your device does not exceed transmission levels and it can handle EMI and ESD. This depends on both the firmware and the hardware.

Decawave/Qorvo can only really show that our hardware can pass certification. In the case of modules that have an on-board antenna, we can even provide settings and configurations we find that meet the regulatory limits. We can’t prevent our modules from exceeding regulatory emissions if e.g a higher TX power is used.

Depending on the region, your responsibility as product vendor is showing that you did due diligence ensuring your device does not exceed regulatory limits. Showing you use the same settings on the same hardware as our pre-certified modules might be enough for this.

If you want to bring a DWM1001 based product to the market, I suggest having a golden sample certified at test house. They are typically up-to-date on the latest requirements and they are able to provide a report making it very easy to prove compliance. It also allows you to make the margins smaller, increasing performance, especially if your product has some form of casing.

otp memory cannot be used, was already written by decawave for the default -41.3 dBm / MHz case

There are plenty of “user configurable” OTP regions available for this if you are creating your own firmware. See section 6.3.1 OTP memory map in the DW1000 User Manual.

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