Adaptive mitigation of stationary interference in a vehicular radar system

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11163053-B2
Application number	US-201816181753-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Nov 6, 2018
Priority date	Nov 6, 2018
Publication date	Nov 2, 2021
Grant date	Nov 2, 2021

Abstract

A vehicle, radar system of the vehicle and method of operating the vehicle. A transmit antenna transmits a radio wave and a plurality of receive antennae receive echo radio waves from an object receptive to the transmitted radio wave, wherein the echo radio waves includes short-range interference. A processor generates a plurality of radar data arrays for the return signals, wherein each radar data array represents the return signal received at a corresponding receiver antennae, estimates an amount of short-range interference present in the return signal of each radar data array, subtracts the estimate of short-range interference from each of the radar data array to obtain a plurality of clutter-free radar data arrays, and detects the object using at least the plurality of clutter-free radar data arrays. A navigation system navigates the vehicle based on the detection of the object.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method of operating a vehicle, comprising:
transmitting a radio wave from a transmit antenna of a radar system of the vehicle during motion of the vehicle;
receiving, at a plurality of receive antennae of the radar system, return signals that include echo radio waves from an object receptive to the transmitted radio wave and short-range interference;
generating a plurality of radar data arrays for the return signals, wherein each radar data array includes a range-Doppler map that represents the return signal received at a corresponding receiver antenna while the vehicle is in motion;
estimating an amount of short-range interference present in the return signal of each radar data array by determining an average of the return signal while the vehicle is in motion;
subtracting the estimate of short-range interference from each of the radar data array when a standard deviation of the average is less than a defined threshold to obtain a plurality of clutter-free radar data arrays;
detecting the object using the plurality of clutter-free radar data arrays; and
navigating the vehicle with respect to the object based on the detection of the object;
wherein the plurality of radar data arrays includes respective range-Doppler maps, and wherein estimating the amount of short-range interference further comprises learning a stochastic model of the short-range interference based at least on one of the respective range-Doppler maps.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein detecting the object further comprises detecting at least one of a range and a direction of arrival of the object.

3. The method of claim 2 , wherein detecting the object further comprises solving an optimization problem with respect to a maximum likelihood function based at least one of the plurality of clutter-free radar data arrays.

4. The method of claim 3 , further comprising solving the optimization problem with respect to an approximation of the maximum likelihood function.

5. The method of claim 4 , wherein the approximation further comprises an incoherent summation over the plurality of clutter-free arrays.

6. The method of claim 2 , wherein estimating the amount of short-range interference further comprising determining a clutter feature vector for a range-Doppler map, the clutter feature vector excluding a non-Doppler region of the range Doppler map, wherein a Doppler value of the clutter feature vector corresponding to a Doppler bin of the range-Doppler map is a sum of values over selected range bins for the Doppler bin.

7. A radar system of a vehicle, comprising:
a transmit antenna configured to transmit a radio wave from the radar system;
plurality of receive antennae configured to receive echo radio waves from an object receptive to the transmitted radio wave, wherein the echo radio waves includes short-range interference;
a processor configured to: generate a plurality of radar data arrays for the return signals, wherein each radar data array includes a range-Doppler map that represents the return signal received at a corresponding receiver antennae while the vehicle is in motion;
estimate an amount of short-range interference present in the return signal of each radar data array by determining an average of the return signal while the vehicle is in motion; subtract the estimate of short-range interference from each of the radar data array when a standard deviation of the average is less than a defined threshold to obtain a plurality of clutter-free radar data arrays; and
detect the object using at least the plurality of clutter-free radar data arrays;
wherein the plurality of radar data arrays includes respective range-Doppler maps, and wherein the processor is further configured to estimate the amount of short-range interference by learning a stochastic model of the short-range interference based at least on one of the respective range-Doppler maps.

8. The radar system of claim 7 , wherein the processor is further configured to detect the object by detecting at least one of a range and a direction of arrival of the object.

9. The radar system of claim 7 , wherein the processor is further configured to detect the object by solving the optimization problem with respect to a maximum likelihood function based at least one of the plurality of clutter-free radar data arrays.

10. The radar system of claim 9 , wherein the processor further configured to solve the optimization problem with respect to an approximation of the maximum likelihood function.

11. The radar system of claim 10 , wherein the approximation further comprises an incoherent summation over the plurality of clutter-free arrays.

12. The radar system of claim 7 , wherein the processor is further configured to estimate the amount of short-range interference by determining a clutter feature vector for a range-Doppler map, the clutter feature vector excluding a non-Doppler region of the range Doppler map, wherein a Doppler value of the clutter feature vector corresponding to a Doppler bin of the range-Doppler map is a sum of values over selected range bins for the Doppler bin.

13. A vehicle, comprising: a radar system including:
a transmit antenna configured to transmit a radio wave from the radar system;
a plurality of receive antennae configured to receive echo radio waves from an object receptive to the transmitted radio wave, wherein the echo radio waves includes short-range interference;
a processor configured to: generate a plurality of radar data arrays for the return signals, wherein each radar data array includes a range-Doppler map that represents the return signal received at a corresponding receiver antennae while the vehicle is in motion;
estimate an amount of short-range interference present in the return signal of each radar data array by determining an average of the return signal while the vehicle is in motion;
subtract the estimate of short-range interference from each of the radar data array when a standard deviation of the average is less than a defined threshold to obtain a plurality of clutter-free radar data arrays; and
detect the object using at least the plurality of clutter-free radar data arrays;
wherein the plurality of radar data arrays includes respective range-Doppler maps, and
wherein the processor is further configured to estimate the amount of short-range interference by
learning a stochastic model of the short-range interference based at least on one of the respective
range-Doppler maps; and
a navigation system configured to navigate the vehicle based on the detection of the object.

14. The vehicle of claim 13 , wherein the processor is further configured to detect at least one of a range and a direction of arrival of the object.

15. The vehicle of claim 13 , wherein the processor is further configured to detect the object by solving an optimization problem with respect to a maximum likelihood function based at least one of the plurality of clutter-free radar data arrays.

16. The vehicle of claim 13 , wherein the processor is further configured to solve the optimization problem with respect to an approximation of the maximum likelihood function.

17. The vehicle of claim 13 , wherein the processor is further configured to estimate the amount of short-range interference by determining a clutter feature vector for a range-Doppler map, the clutter feature vector excluding a non-Doppler region of the range Doppler map, wherein a Doppler value of the clutter feature vector corresponding to a Doppler bin of the range-Doppler map is a sum of values over selected range bins for the Dop

Assignees

• Gm Global Tech Operations Llc

Inventors

• Shayovitz Shachar
• Menaker Yonattan
• Bilik Igal

Classifications

• G01S7/023

  Interference mitigation, e.g. reducing or avoiding non-intentional interference with other HF-transmitters, base station transmitters for mobile communication or other radar systems, e.g. using electro-magnetic interference [EMI] reduction techniques (auxiliary means for detecting or identifying radar signals or the like G01S7/021; means for anti-jamming G01S7/36) · CPC title

• G01S13/449 Primary

  Combined with MTI or Doppler processing circuits · CPC title

• G01S13/89

  for mapping or imaging · CPC title

• G01S13/931 Primary

  of land vehicles · CPC title

• G01S13/5248

  combining a coherent MTI processor with a zero Doppler processing channel and a clutter mapped memory, e.g. MTD (Moving target detector), (area MTI G01S13/538) · CPC title