HOW DOES IT WORK?

RF Meter Click is based on the AD8318, a logarithmic detector/controller from Analog Devices. It is a demodulating logarithmic amplifier capable of accurately converting an RF input signal to a corresponding decibel-scaled output voltage. It employs the progressive compression technique over a cascaded amplifier chain, with each stage equipped with a detector cell. The AD8318 can be used in measurement or controller mode of operation. It maintains accurate log conformance for signals of 1MHz to 6GHz and provides operation up to 8GHz. The input range is typically 60dB with an error of less than ±1dB and a 10ns response time that enables RF burst detection beyond 45MHz. In addition, the AD8318 comes with an integrated temperature sensor with independent output which can be used as a temperature compensation.

The voltage output of the AD8318 goes to the MCP3201, a successive approximation 12-bit analog-to-digital converter with an onboard sample and hold circuitry from Microchip. This ADC provides a single pseudo-differential output, with sample rates of up to 100ksps. To provide correct values, this Click board™ uses an AP7331 LDO linear regulator to provide referent voltage to the MCP3201. The RF Meter uses a 3-wire SPI serial interface of the MCP3201 to communicate to the host MCU over the mikroBUS™ socket. The RF Meter can use either an SPI mode 0 or an SPI mode 1, depending on the needs. The readings of the independent temperature sensor of the AD8318 can be read over the OUT pin mikroBUS™ socket, giving analog values.

This Click board™ can operate with either 3.3V or 5V logic voltage levels selected via the LOGIC LEVEL jumper. This way, both 3.3V and 5V capable MCUs can use the communication lines properly. However, the Click board™ comes equipped with a library containing easy-to-use functions and an example code that can be used, as a reference, for further development.

SPECIFICATIONS

PINOUT DIAGRAM

This table shows how the pinout on RF Meter Click corresponds to the pinout on the mikroBUS™ socket (the latter shown in the two middle columns).

ONBOARD SETTINGS AND INDICATORS

RF METER CLICK ELECTRICAL SPECIFICATIONS

SOFTWARE SUPPORT

We provide a library for the RF Meter Click as well as a demo application (example), developed using Mikroe . The demo can run on all the main Mikroe .

Package can be downloaded/installed directly from NECTO Studio Package Manager (recommended), downloaded from our  or found on .

Library Description

This library contains API for RF Meter Click driver.

Key functions

• Function is used to calculate radio frequency signal strenght in a vicinity.

Example Description

Demo app measures and displays signal strenght by using RF Meter click board.

 void application_task ( void ) 
 { 
     signal = rfmeter_get_signal_strenght( &rfmeter, RFMETER_DEF_SLOPE, RFMETER_DEF_INTERCEPT ); 

     log_printf( &logger, "Signal strenght: %.2f dBm rn", signal ); 

     Delay_ms( 1000 ); 
     log_printf( &logger, "-----------------------rn" ); 
 }

The full application code, and ready to use projects can be installed directly from NECTO Studio Package Manager (recommended), downloaded from our  or found on .