On-demand multi-scan micro doppler for vehicle

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10073171-B2
Application number	US-201715690898-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Aug 30, 2017
Priority date	Apr 25, 2016
Publication date	Sep 11, 2018
Grant date	Sep 11, 2018

Abstract

A radar sensing system for a vehicle includes a transmitter, a receiver, a memory, and a processor. The transmitter transmits a radio signal and the receiver receives a reflected radio signal. The processor samples reflected radio signals during a plurality of time slices. The processor produces samples by correlating reflected radio signals to time-delayed replicas of transmitted radio signals. The processor accumulates the time slices into a first radar data cube (RDC) and selectively processes a portion of the first RDC to produce a first partial Doppler output. The processor produces samples during a second scan and accumulates time slices into a second RDC, and then selectively processes a portion of the second RDC to produce a second partial Doppler output. The processor numerically accumulates the first and second partial Doppler outputs to create a full Doppler output and stores the full Doppler output in memory.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A radar sensing system for a vehicle, the radar sensing system comprising:
a transmit pipeline comprising a plurality of transmitters configured for installation and use on a vehicle, and configured to transmit radio signals;
a receive pipeline comprising a plurality of receivers configured for installation and use on the vehicle, and configured to receive radio signals, wherein the received radio signals include reflected radio signals that are the transmitted radio signals reflected from an object; and
a processor;
wherein the receive pipeline is configured to correlate received radio signals of the plurality of receivers with a plurality of time-delayed replicas of the transmitted radio signals to produce samples;
wherein each time-delayed replica of the plurality of time-delayed replicas of the transmitted radio signals corresponds with a particular range bin of a particular receiver of the plurality of receivers;
wherein samples are produced during a first plurality of time slices of a first scan;
wherein a time slice of the first plurality of time slices comprises a two-dimensional array of samples, the two-dimensional array defined by the plurality of receivers and a respective plurality of range bins for each receiver of the plurality of receivers;
wherein each range bin of each respective plurality of range bins contains a sample from the respective receiver of the plurality of receivers;
wherein the first plurality of time slices is accumulated into a first three-dimensional array during the first scan;
wherein the receive pipeline is further configured to produce samples during a second plurality of time slices of a second scan;
wherein the second plurality of time slices is accumulated into a second three-dimensional array during the second scan;
wherein the receive pipeline is further configured to output the first and second three-dimensional arrays to the processor;
wherein the processor is configured to (a) selectively process a portion of the first three-dimensional array, (b) produce a first partial Doppler output, (c) discard the first three-dimensional array, and (d) save the first partial Doppler output into memory;
wherein the portion of the first three-dimensional array comprises less than the entire first three-dimensional array;
wherein the portion of the first three-dimensional array comprises a first time series of samples for at least one range bin of each receiver of the plurality of receivers;
wherein the processor is further configured to selectively process a second time series of samples from a second three-dimensional array to produce a second partial Doppler output; and
wherein the processor stores the second partial Doppler output into the memory by numerically accumulating the second partial Doppler output with the first partial Doppler output.

2. The radar sensing system of claim 1 , wherein a radar unit comprising the plurality of transmitters and plurality of receivers is configured to be installed at at least one of a front portion of the vehicle, a side portion of the vehicle, a rear portion of the vehicle, and behind a windshield of the vehicle.

3. The radar sensing system of claim 1 , wherein the transmitted radio signals and the received radio signals are respectively transmitted and received simultaneously.

4. The radar sensing system of claim 3 , wherein the processor is further configured to post process the accumulated partial Doppler outputs to establish an angle of arrival for the object.

5. The radar sensing system of claim 1 , wherein the processor comprises a CMOS-based processor, and wherein the processor, receivers, and transmitters are established within a radar system architecture that is established on a single semiconductor substrate.

6. The radar sensing system of claim 1 , wherein a time-delayed replica of the transmitted radio signals that is highly correlating with a delay of the received signal produces a complex value with a larger amplitude as compared to an amplitude of non-correlating signals.

7. The radar sensing system of claim 1 , wherein the Doppler processing is performed on a time series synthesized from the time series data from two or more range bins.

8. The radar sensing system of claim 1 , wherein the radio signals comprise phase modulated continuous wave radio frequency (RF) signals.

9. The radar sensing system of claim 1 , wherein the numerically accumulated first partial Doppler output and second partial Doppler output provides a higher Doppler resolution than the first time series of samples, and wherein the high Doppler resolution is achieved during the second scan, and wherein the second scan is substantially equal in time duration to the first scan.

10. The radar sensing system of claim 1 , wherein the samples comprise complex-valued digitized samples.

11. A method for achieving high resolution Doppler measurements for a vehicle radar sensing system, the method comprising:
providing a radar sensing system comprising (i) a transmit pipeline configured for installation and use on a vehicle, wherein the transmit pipeline comprises a plurality of transmitters configured to transmit radio signals, (ii) a receive pipeline configured for installation and use on the vehicle, wherein the receive pipeline comprises a plurality of receivers configured to receive radio signals that include the transmitted radio signals reflected from objects in the environment, and (iii) a processor for processing the radio signals received by the plurality of receivers;
sampling the received radio signals during a first plurality of time slices of a first scan, wherein each time slice comprises a plurality of samples, a respective sample for each range bin of each plurality of range bins for each receiver of the plurality of receivers in each time slice, and wherein the samples are produced by correlating the received signals to time-delayed replicas of the transmitted signals;
accumulating the first plurality of time slices into a first radar data cube during the first scan;
sampling the received radio signals during a second plurality of time slices of a second scan;
accumulating the second plurality of time slices into a second radar data cube during the second scan;
outputting the first and second radar data cubes to the processor;
with the processor, selectively Doppler processing a portion of the first radar data cube, producing a first partial Doppler output, discarding the first radar data cube, and saving the first partial Doppler output into a memory;
wherein the portion of the first radar data cube comprises a first time series of samples for at least one range bin of each receiver of the plurality of receivers;
with the processor, selectively Doppler processing a second time series of samples from the second radar data cube to produce a second partial Doppler output; and
with the processor, storing the second partial Doppler output into the memory by numerically accumulating the second partial Doppler output with the first partial Doppler output.

12. The method of claim 11 , wherein the portion of the first radar data cube comprises less than the entire first radar data cube.

13. The method of claim 11 , wherein the transmitted radio signals and the received radio signals are respectively transmitted and received simultaneously.

14. The method of claim 11 further comprising post-processing the accumulated partial Doppler outputs to establish an angle of arrival for each object.

15. The method of claim 11 , wherein the Doppler processing is performed on a time series synthesized from the time se

Assignees

• Uhnder Inc

Inventors

• Bordes Jean P
• Rao Raghunath K
• Maher Monier

Classifications

• G01S2013/93272

  in the back of the vehicles · CPC title

• G01S7/354

  Extracting wanted echo-signals (Doppler systems G01S13/50) · CPC title

• G01S2013/93274

  on the side of the vehicles · CPC title

• G01S2013/93271

  in the front of the vehicles · CPC title

• G01S13/325

  using transmission of coded signals, e.g. P.S.K. signals · CPC title