Radar front-end with RF oscillator monitoring

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11719802-B2
Application number	US-202117403096-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Aug 16, 2021
Priority date	Aug 18, 2017
Publication date	Aug 8, 2023
Grant date	Aug 8, 2023

Abstract

A radar method is described. According to one exemplary embodiment, the method includes generating a first RF oscillator signal in a first chip and supplying the first RF oscillator signal to a transmission (TX) channel of the first chip and transmitting the first RF oscillator signal from the TX channel of the first chip to the second chip via a transmission line.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A radar chip, comprising:
a radio frequency (RF) contact;
an RF oscillator integrated in the radar chip;
at least one first demodulator integrated in the radar chip and comprising a first RF input and a first reference input, wherein the first RF input is coupled to the RF contact and the first reference input is coupled to an output of the RF oscillator,
wherein the first RF input of the at least one first demodulator is configured to receive a first RF oscillator signal via the RF contact from an external RF oscillator; and
a controller integrated in the radar chip and configured to determine a first propagation delay of the first RF oscillator signal arriving at the radar chip on a basis of information obtained from the at least one first demodulator.

2. The radar chip as claimed in claim 1 , wherein:
the RF oscillator has an output that is coupled to the RF contact via at least one transmission (TX) channel.

3. The radar chip as claimed in claim 2 , wherein the controller is configured to determine a propagation delay assigned to an external transmission line based on the first propagation delay, wherein the external transmission line is configured to be coupled to the RF contact and from which the first RF oscillator signal is received.

4. The radar chip as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the first RF oscillator signal has at least one frequency ramp.

5. The radar chip as claimed in claim 4 , wherein the RF oscillator is configured to generate a second RF oscillator signal, and
wherein the controller is configured to determine the first propagation delay based on a first beat frequency that results from a demodulation of the first RF oscillator signal arriving at the radar chip using the second RF oscillator signal.

6. The radar chip as claimed in claim 5 , wherein the first RF oscillator signal has at least one frequency ramp and the second RF oscillator signal has a corresponding frequency ramp.

7. The radar chip as claimed in claim 5 , wherein the first RF oscillator signal has a first frequency and the second RF oscillator signal has a second frequency that differs from the first frequency by a defined frequency offset.

8. The radar chip as claimed in claim 7 , wherein the controller is configured to determine the first propagation delay based on a phase which is assigned to the defined frequency offset and results from the demodulation of the first RF oscillator signal arriving at the radar chip using the second RF oscillator signal.

9. The radar chip as claimed in claim 7 , wherein, in order to determine the first propagation delay, the controller is configured to:
determine two phases, which are a result of a demodulation of the first RF oscillator signal arriving at the at least one first demodulator, for two corresponding frequency offsets,
calculate a phase difference from the two phases and an associated frequency offset difference, and
calculate the first propagation delay based on the phase difference and the associated frequency offset difference.

10. The radar chip as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the radar chip is a radar monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC).

Assignees

• Infineon Technologies Ag

Inventors

• Starzer Florian
• Kollmann Helmut
• Melzer Alexander
• Stuhlberger Rainer
• Vuketich Roland
• Zinnoecker Mathias

Classifications

• G01S13/343 Primary

  using sawtooth modulation · CPC title

• G01S7/352

  Receivers · CPC title

• G01S7/03 Primary

  Details of HF subsystems specially adapted therefor, e.g. common to transmitter and receiver · CPC title

• G01S7/35 Primary

  Details of non-pulse systems · CPC title

• G01S7/4004

  of parts of a radar system · CPC title