Efficient compression of radar data

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10958287-B1
Application number	US-202016918587-A
Country	US
Kind code	B1
Filing date	Jul 1, 2020
Priority date	Dec 3, 2019
Publication date	Mar 23, 2021
Grant date	Mar 23, 2021

Abstract

A two-stage technique for compressing radar data is disclosed in which, in the first stage, Constant False Alarm Rate (CFAR) compression is conducted using a median calculated from at least one dimension of radar data, which is then used to determine filtering threshold values for all dimensions of the radar data. The radar data is then compressed by filtering the radar data based on the filtering threshold values. In the second stage, peak detection is then performed on the compressed data to identify detected objects (targets). These and other embodiments are described herein.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method of compressing radar data, the method comprising:
obtaining input samples comprising values measured by a radar for a plurality of dimensions;
determining a median of the values of the input samples for at least one dimension of the plurality of dimensions;
filtering the input samples based on the median to create a set of compressed radar data, wherein the filtering comprises, for each dimension of the plurality of dimensions:
determining a filtering threshold value for the respective dimension; and
excluding, from the set of compressed radar data, one or more values of the input samples for the respective dimension that are less than the filtering threshold value above the median; and

performing peak detection on the set of compressed radar data to generate a list of one or more identified targets.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the plurality of dimensions comprise two or more of:
azimuth,
elevation,
Doppler, or
range.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein:
determining the median of the values of the input samples for the at least one dimension comprises determining a median for each subset of a plurality of subsets within the input samples for the at least one dimension; and
for each dimension of the plurality of dimensions:
determining the filtering threshold value for the respective dimension comprises determining a plurality of filtering threshold values comprising a filtering threshold value for each subset of the plurality of subsets; and
excluding the one or more values of the input samples from the set of compressed radar data for the respective dimension comprises excluding one or more values of the input samples that are less than at least one filtering threshold value of the plurality of filtering threshold values.

4. The method of claim 3 , wherein the plurality of subsets within the input samples for at least one dimension are mutually exclusive.

5. The method of claim 1 , further comprising storing the set of compressed radar data on a plurality of memory banks, wherein at least two memory banks of the plurality of memory banks may be accessed in parallel.

6. The method of claim 1 , further comprising storing the set of compressed radar data in a memory bank accessible via one or more indirect access tables.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein determining the median comprises conducting a binary search using an array of comparators.

8. The method of claim 7 , wherein conducting the binary search using an array of comparators comprises:
iteratively comparing the values of input samples with a search value using the array of comparators; and
for each iteration:
comparing a number of input samples having values greater than the search value with an ordered statistic order, and
changing the search value base on the comparison.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein:
the plurality of dimensions comprises four dimensions; and
performing peak detection on the set of compressed radar data comprises identifying a peak value in at least three dimensions of the plurality of dimensions.

10. A device for compressing radar data, the device comprising:
a memory; and
one or more processing units communicatively coupled with the memory and configured to:
obtain input samples comprising values measured by a radar for a plurality of dimensions;
determine a median of the values of the input samples for at least one dimension of the plurality of dimensions;
filter the input samples based on the median to create a set of compressed radar data, wherein the filtering comprises, for each dimension of the plurality of dimensions:
determining a filtering threshold value for the respective dimension; and
excluding, from the set of compressed radar data, one or more values of the input samples for the respective dimension that are less than the filtering threshold value above the median; and

perform peak detection on the set of compressed radar data to generate a list of one or more identified targets.

11. The device of claim 10 , wherein the plurality of dimensions comprise two or more of:
azimuth,
elevation,
Doppler, or
range.

12. The device of claim 10 , wherein the one or more processing units are configured to:
determine the median of the values of the input samples for the at least one dimension least in part by determining of a median for each subset of a plurality of subsets within the input samples for the at least one dimension; and
for each dimension of the plurality of dimensions:
determine the filtering threshold value for the respective dimension at least in part by determining of a plurality of filtering threshold values comprising a filtering threshold value for each subset of the plurality of subsets;
exclude the one or more values of the input samples from the set of compressed radar data for the respective dimension least in part by excluding one or more values of the input samples that are less than at least one filtering threshold value of the plurality of filtering threshold values.

13. The device of claim 12 , wherein the plurality of subsets within the input samples for at least one dimension are mutually exclusive.

14. The device of claim 10 , wherein the one or more processing units are configured to store the set of compressed radar data on a plurality of memory banks, wherein at least two memory banks of the plurality of memory banks may be accessed in parallel.

15. The device of claim 10 , wherein the one or more processing units are configured to store the set of compressed radar data in a memory bank accessible via one or more indirect access tables.

16. The device of claim 10 , wherein the one or more processing units are configured to determine the median based on a result of a binary search conducted by an array of comparators.

17. The device of claim 16 , wherein the device is configured to conduct the binary search using an array of comparators to:
iteratively compare the values of input samples with a search value using the array of comparators; and
for each iteration:
compare a number of input samples having values greater than the search value with an ordered statistic order, and
change the search value base on the comparison.

18. The device of claim 10 , wherein:
the plurality of dimensions comprises four dimensions; and
the one or more processing units are configured to perform peak detection on the set of compressed radar data based on identifying a peak value in at least three dimensions of the plurality of dimensions.

19. A device comprising:
means for obtaining input samples comprising values measured by a radar for a plurality of dimensions;
means for determining a median of the values of the input samples for at least one dimension of the plurality of dimensions;
means for filtering the input samples based on the median to create a set of compressed radar data, wherein the filtering comprises, for each dimension of the plurality of dimensions:
determining a filtering threshold value for the respective dimension; and
excluding, from the set of compressed radar data, one or more values of the input samples for the respective dimension that are less than the filtering threshold value above the median; and

means for performing peak detection on the set of compressed radar data to generate a list of one or more identified targets.

20. The device of claim 19 , wherein the plurality of dimensions comprise two or more of:
azimuth,
elevation,
Doppler, or
range.

Assignees

• Qualcomm Inc

Inventors

• Sanderovich Amichai
• Hay Ran
• Hof Eran
• Hemo Evyatar
• Levitan Evgeny
• Rahmani Kochavi Liat

Classifications

• H03M7/70

  Type of the data to be coded, other than image and sound · CPC title

• H03M7/6023

  Parallelization · CPC title

• H03M7/6011 Primary

  Encoder aspects · CPC title

• H03M7/3059 Primary

  Digital compression and data reduction techniques where the original information is represented by a subset or similar information, e.g. lossy compression · CPC title

• G01S13/42 Primary

  Simultaneous measurement of distance and other co-ordinates (indirect measurement G01S13/46) · CPC title