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BeeBoard

Figure BeeBoard The Beeboard is an active Ultra Wideband (UWB) antenna designed to be used with the HiveBoard. It harbors a DW1000 IC under a faraday cage to receive the UWB signal.

USB-C orientation detection

The Beeboard has an automatic USB-C orientation detection system. Once the USB-C is plugged, it takes 500ms for the board to detect and arrange the switches to correctly route the signals.

Error

The V1.000 Beeboard is missing three pull-up resistors rendering the USB-C orientation detection unusable. Even if you are unsuccessful on the repair, the BeeBoard is still functionnal but the user will have to find the correct orientation.

Connection with the HiveBoard V1.000

Error

The designers made some mistakes in the routing of the signals between the HiveBoard V1.000 and the BeeBoard V1.000 and did not account the signal switching in the USB-C cable. A small board was designed to fix these issues called the Wings. It is available at the GitHub repo

Important

If using the HiveBoard V1.000 and BeeBoard V1.000, do not forget to have a Wings board for each BeeBoard for correct functionning.

BeeBoard UI

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The BeeBoard has multiple user interface elements useful for the user and for debugging purposes (see image above). In purple are the single-ended test point, in red the 100 mil pins for SPI and the button and in orange triangles, the LEDs.

In purple :

  1. 1.8V test point

  2. 3.3V test point

  3. 5V test point

  4. SEL, indicates the voltage of the selection. 3.3V logic.

  5. SEL#, always the inverse of SEL test point.

  6. CC2, indicates the voltage on the CC2 pin at the connector.

  7. CC1, indicates the voltage on the CC1 pin at the connector. CC1 and CC2 voltage are used to decide the USB-C orientation.

  8. Pulse, the pulse test point should have a pulse 500ms after the Beeboard is powered. The pulse is used to set the gates and switches selection.

  9. Ground hook. Reference all above test points with this one.

    A. CLK, the clock test point has a ground pad right beside it to reduce the current return path. B. Sync, the sync signal to synchronise the BeeBoards connected to one HiveBoard synchronised.

In red : SPI 100 mils

  1. nCS

  2. SPI CLK

  3. MISO

  4. MOSI

  5. GND

  6. GND

The button on the top right of the BeeBoard has the purpose of sending a pulse to reset the gates and the USB-C orientation detection flags.

The orange triangles represent the LEDs present on the BeeBoard, D10 and D9 are user LEDs connected to the DW1000 and can be used for debugging purposes. D11 is connected to the EXTON output of the DW1000. The EXTON output is high when the DW100 is correctly powered, hence the LED should be always on. The LEDs D8 to D6 indicates the presence of the voltage 1.8V, 3.3V and 5V and should be on at all times.

The top connector is a female SMA connector. It can be connected to any UWB antenna.

Hint

The antennas used in the project are the Ciholas antennas.

V2.000

The BeeBoard has a 2.000 version (in the WORKING COPY folder) addressing the mistakes and bugs from V1.000. With the new DW3220 IC on the market, the entire HiveBoard-BeeBoard design should be revised.

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