Positioning your RadSense 1
The sensor will see through wood, plastics, glass, textile and literally anything without metal. The denser the object, the more the detection range will be reduced, so don’t expect wonders. It cannot look through an entire building, but single sheets of plaster and normal walls pose no problem. We’ll start off with what to avoid and then we’ll look at some examples of materials.
Things that will not work
The one thing that really disturbs the sensor is metal. Be sure to place the sensor with a free line of sight to the area you want to detect. With “free line of sight”, we basically mean “without any metal objects in the path”. This means – no metal objects anywhere around the device, so putting it on a metal table won’t work well.
If there are any metal objects in the detection zone, they will create “dead spots” and they can also radiate the signal so detection is downright wrong. Keep in mind that some objects may contain metals without you even thinking about it.
There is also a special bug that might occur if the device is pointing at a wall that is regularly changing temperature. While this is rare, we are currently researching this problem and we expect to solve that with a software update. If this happens, try positioning the sensor at the other end of the room.
Things that will work great
Any single sheet of organic material we have tested will produce no significant reduction of the radar signal. Below are some of the materials we’ve tested.
We have also tested MDF, Vachomat/HDF, 1/2/3 pane glass windows, acrylic sheets (4-12mm) as well as internal walls in several buildings. The only wall the radar could not properly see through was a 30cm (12″) fireproof wall with 5 layers of 12.5mm (0.5″) plaster. It should go through any material that isn’t “hard” like rock or metal. To a large extent, you can think of this signal as a Bluetooth signal, but as opposed to Bluetooth the signal is very directional.
15-20 cm walls with insulation should not pose a problem unless there is metal objects embedded in the wall. You also have to keep in mind that if there are anyone beyond that first wall, you might have to reduce the detection range. If you want to detect someone walking past in a 1.5m wide hallway, the device will also detect anyone behind the second wall of the hallway unless you reduce the max range.
Mounting the device
The radiation pattern is not equal in horizontal and vertical direction. We suggest that you experiment with both directions to find what works the best for your specific use case.
The device has two screw holes built into the casing that can be used to fix the device to a surface. The device also has a DIN rail mount. For using this, we recommend using a plastic DIN rail, since placing a large metal surface below it can disturb the radar signals. We’ve also used less permanent methods such as double-sided assembly tape (3M VHB or Gorilla mounting tape).
