Intelligent metamaterial radar for target identification

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10942256-B2
Application number	US-201815983036-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	May 17, 2018
Priority date	Jun 5, 2017
Publication date	Mar 9, 2021
Grant date	Mar 9, 2021

Abstract

Examples disclosed herein relate to an Intelligent Metamaterial (“iMTM”) radar for target identification. The iMTM radar has an iMTM antenna module to radiate a transmission signal with an iMTM antenna structure and generate radar data capturing a surrounding environment. An iMTM interface module detects and identifies a target in the surrounding environment from the radar data and controls the iMTM antenna module.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. An Intelligent Metamaterial (“iMTM”) interface module for use with an iMTM antenna module in a radar system, comprising:
a target detection module configured to detect a target in a radar point cloud encoded from radar data;
a decision neural network configured to determine an action for the iMTM antenna module to perform based on the target detection in the radar point cloud; and
a beam control module configured to control the action for the iMTM antenna module.

2. The iMTM interface module of claim 1 , wherein the target detection module comprises a convolutional neural network.

3. The iMTM interface module of claim 1 , wherein the radar point cloud is pre-processed to correct for non-line-of-sight reflections in a non-line-of-sight correction module.

4. The iMTM interface module of claim 3 , wherein the non-line-of-sight correction module comprises a planar surface identification module and a non-line-of-sight reflection remapping module configured to generate the radar point cloud for the target detection module.

5. The iMTM interface module of claim 1 , wherein the action comprises an instruction to the iMTM antenna module for generating a beam with a set of parameters and at a phase shift.

6. The iMTM interface module of claim 5 , wherein to control the action for the iMTM antenna module comprises to determine the set of parameters and the phase shift for the beam.

7. An Intelligent Metamaterial (“iMTM”) interface module for a radar system, comprising:
an iMTM antenna module configured to radiate a transmission signal and generate radar data capturing a surrounding environment;
a target detection module configured to detect and identify a target in a radar point cloud encoded from the radar data; and
a beam control module configured to control the iMTM antenna module.

8. The iMTM interface module of claim 7 , wherein the iMTM antenna module comprises an iMTM antenna structure having a plurality of iMTM antenna arrays.

9. The iMTM interface module of claim 8 , wherein the iMTM antenna module is further configured to radiate the transmission signal with the iMTM antenna structure.

10. The iMTM interface module of claim 8 , wherein each of the plurality of iMTM antenna arrays comprises a plurality of iMTM cells configured into a plurality of subarrays and each of the plurality of iMTM antenna arrays provides a plurality of phase shifts in the transmission signal.

11. The iMTM interface module of claim 8 , wherein the iMTM antenna structure comprises a feed distribution module having an impedance matching structure and a reactance control structure.

12. The iMTM interface module of claim 7 , wherein the target detection module comprises a convolutional neural network that is coupled to a decision neural network.

13. The iMTM interface module of claim 7 , wherein the radar point cloud is pre-processed to correct for non-line-of-sight reflections in a non-line-of-sight correction module.

14. The iMTM interface module of claim 7 , wherein a data pre-processing module is used for encoding the radar data into the radar point cloud.

15. The iMTM interface module of claim 14 , wherein the data pre-processing module comprises an autoencoder.

16. A method for using an Intelligent Metamaterial (“iMTM”) interface module for a radar system, comprising:
directing an Intelligent Metamaterial (“iMTM”) antenna structure to radiate RF beams with determined parameters;
receiving reflections from the RF beams;
generating, from the reflections, radar data capturing a surrounding environment;
identifying a target in a radar point cloud encoded from the radar data; and
determining a next action for the iMTM antenna structure.

17. The method of claim 16 , wherein directing the iMTM antenna structure to radiate RF beams with determined parameters comprises directing a plurality of iMTM antenna arrays in the iMTM antenna structure to radiate RF beams with a set of directions and phase shifts.

18. The method of claim 16 , further comprising:
encoding the radar data into the radar point cloud with non-line-of-sight correction.

19. The method of claim 16 , further comprising:
extracting micro-doppler signals from the radar data.

20. The method of claim 19 , wherein identifying the target comprises using the micro-doppler signals and a convolutional neural network coupled to a decision neural network to identify the target.

Assignees

• Metawave Corp

Inventors

• Achour Maha
• Harrison Matthew

Classifications

• G01S7/417 Primary

  involving the use of neural networks · CPC title

• G01S7/2883

  using FFT processing · CPC title

• G01S7/356

  involving particularities of FFT processing · CPC title

• H01Q1/364

  using a particular conducting material, e.g. superconductor · CPC title

• G01S13/726

  Multiple target tracking · CPC title