Angular velocity sensing using arrays of antennas

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11035944-B2
Application number	US-202016886446-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	May 28, 2020
Priority date	Jul 29, 2015
Publication date	Jun 15, 2021
Grant date	Jun 15, 2021

Abstract

Various techniques are provided to efficiently detect the position and angular velocity of an object relative to a compact radar system including a transmitter antenna array and a receiver antenna array. In one example, a method includes repeatedly scanning a transmitter antenna array and a receiver antenna array of an object sensing system through a plurality of designated transmitter and receiver channels over a period of time to generate a time series of measured channel responses corresponding to each one of the designated channels, determining a time series of directional vectors to or from an object scanned by at least one of the designated channels, and/or a corresponding time series of average phase differences, based, at least in part, on the time series of measured channel responses, and determining an angular velocity of the object from the time series of directional vectors and/or the corresponding time series of average phase differences.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method comprising:
designating a plurality of transmitter and receiver channels for a transmitter antenna array and a receiver antenna array of an object sensing system;
scanning the transmitter antenna array and the receiver antenna array through the designated channels to measure channel responses corresponding to each one of the designated channels; and
determining a directional vector to or from an object scanned by at least one of the designated channels based at least in part on the measured channel responses.

2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
forming a measurement matrix comprising entries corresponding to each measured channel response, wherein the designating the plurality of transmitter and receiver channels comprises:
forming a transmitter amplitude weight vector (AWV) matrix comprising one or more transmitter AWVs corresponding to each transmitter channel in the plurality of transmitter and receiver channels, and
forming a receiver AWV matrix comprising one or more receiver AWVs corresponding to each receiver channel in the plurality of transmitter and receiver channels.

3. The method of claim 2 , wherein the transmitter AWV matrix and the receiver AWV matrix each comprise a Hadamard matrix, the method further comprising:
deriving a channel matrix based at least in part on the measurement matrix, the transmitter AWV matrix, and the receiver AWV matrix; and
determining the directional vector to or from the object by performing singular value decomposition on the channel matrix to determine at least a largest singular value corresponding to the directional vector to or from the object.

4. The method of claim 2 , wherein the transmitter AWV matrix and the receiver AWV matrix each comprise AWVs configured to focus the designated channels within a particular subset of an available detection area, the method further comprising:
determining the directional vector to or from the object by performing singular value decomposition on the measurement matrix to determine at least a largest singular value and a corresponding measurement matrix singular vector, and by applying a transformation matrix based at least in part on the transmitter AWV matrix or the receiver AWV matrix to the measurement matrix singular vector to transform the measurement matrix singular vector into the directional vector to or from the object.

5. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
forming a channel matrix comprising entries corresponding to each measured channel response, wherein the designated channels correspond to pairs of individual antenna elements comprising one antenna element from each of the transmitter antenna array and the receiver antenna array; and
determining the directional vector to or from the object by performing singular value decomposition on the channel matrix to determine at least a largest singular value corresponding to the directional vector to or from the object.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the designated channels correspond to different transmitter or receiver beam angles relative to an emission surface of the transmitter antenna array or the receiver antenna array, the method further comprising:
determining the directional vector to or from the object, in the form of an angle of departure (AoD) or an angle of arrival (AoA), by identifying one of the measured channel responses comprising a peak signal level and setting the AoD or the AoA to the transmitter or receiver beam angle corresponding to the one measured channel response comprising the peak signal level.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein the designated channels correspond to pairs of individual antenna elements comprising one antenna element from each of the transmitter antenna array and the receiver antenna array, the method further comprising:
determining a plurality of phase differences between signals in the measured channel responses corresponding to adjacent antenna elements within either the transmitter antenna array or the receiver antenna array; and
determining the directional vector to or from the object, in the form of an angle of departure (AoD) or an angle of arrival (AoA), by averaging the plurality of determined phase differences and converting a resulting average phase difference into the AoD or AoA.

8. The method of claim 7 , further comprising:
repeatedly scanning the transmitter antenna array and the receiver antenna array through the designated channels over a period of time to generate a time series of the measured channel responses;
determining a time series of average phase differences based at least in part on the time series of measured channel responses; and
determining an average angular velocity of the object based at least in part on the time series of average phase differences by applying a Fourier transform to a form of the time series of average phase differences and identifying a peak in a resulting transformation as the average angular velocity.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein the designated channels correspond to pairs of individual antenna elements comprising one antenna element from each of the transmitter antenna array and the receiver antenna array, and wherein the transmitter antenna array, the receiver antenna array, or both, comprises a two dimensional antenna array having a first major axis and a second major axis, the method further comprising:
determining a first plurality of phase differences between signals in the measured channel responses corresponding to adjacent antenna elements along the first major axis within either the transmitter antenna array or the receiver antenna array;
determining a second plurality of phase differences between signals in the measured channel responses corresponding to adjacent antenna elements along the second major axis within either the transmitter antenna array or the receiver antenna array; and
determining the directional vector to or from the object, in the form of an angle of departure (AoD) or an angle of arrival (AoA), by averaging the first plurality of determined phase differences, separately averaging the second plurality of determined phase differences, and converting a resulting first and second average phase differences into the AoD or AoA.

10. The method of claim 1 , wherein at least one of the measured channel responses comprises a sampled impulse response, the method further comprising:
performing a matching pursuit process that uses the sampled impulse response to determine a range from the transmitter antenna array or the receiver antenna array to the object.

11. A system comprising:
a transmitter coupled to a transmitter antenna array, wherein the transmitter is configured to apply amplitude weight vectors to signals provided to the transmitter antenna array to form corresponding transmitter channels using one or more antenna elements of the transmitter antenna array;
a receiver coupled to a receiver antenna array, wherein the receiver is configured to apply amplitude weight vectors to signals provided to the receiver antenna array to form corresponding receiver channels using one or more antenna elements of the receiver antenna array;
a controller configured to communicate with the transmitter and the receiver; and
a memory configured to store a plurality of computer readable instructions which, when executed by the controller, are adapted to cause the system to:
designate a plurality of transmitter and receiver channels for the transmitter antenna array and the receiver antenna array;
scan the transmitter antenna array and the receiver antenna array through the designated channels to measure channel responses corresponding to each one of the designated

Assignees

• Qualcomm Inc

Inventors

• Kim Sanghoek
• Bennett Stephen
• Ho Ricky Keangpo
• Cheng Shi
• Emami Sohrab
• Yang Ou

Classifications

• B64U2201/20

  Remote controls · CPC title

• G08G5/55

  for a single aircraft · CPC title

• G08G5/26

  Transmission of traffic-related information between aircraft and ground stations · CPC title

• G08G5/723

  from the aircraft · CPC title

• G08G5/727

  from a ground station · CPC title