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US 10,520,584 B2Granted
Radar system with optimized storage of temporary data
AssigneeContinental Automotive Systems, Inc.
InventorMarkus Wintermantel
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
The invention relates to a radar system for use in driver assistance systems in motor vehicles. According to the invention, the radar system has optimized storage of temporary data when using periodic linear frequency modulation and a multidimensional discrete Fourier transform.
Claims18
A radar system for covering the surroundings of a motor vehicle, said radar system comprising:
- one or more transmitting antennas for radiation of transmitting signals,
- one or more receiving antennas for the reception of transmitting signals reflected off objects, and
- a digital signal processing unit for processing the received signals,
- said digital signal processing unit configured to
- modulate the frequency of the radiated transmitting power such that the frequency of the radiated transmitting power includes a sequence of linear ramps of identical slope,
- mix the signals of several combinations of transmitting and receiving antennas with an oscillator signal and sampling for each frequency ramp in a parallel manner and/or over a plurality of successive frequency ramps in each case, referred to a frequency ramp group, in a serial manner,
- perform a first spectral analysis with a discrete Fourier transform (DFT) in each case over the sampled values for each frequency ramp and for each of the respective combinations of transmitting and receiving antennas,
- store the results of this first spectral analysis over the plurality of frequency ramps for at least a part of its frequency control points, which constitute range gates,
- perform a second spectral analysis with a DFT over the stored values for each range gate and for each combination of transmitting and receiving antenna over the frequency ramps and/or frequency ramp groups,
- process the results of the second spectral analysis over the different combinations of transmitting and receiving antennas with digital beam shaping utilizing a third DFT, and
- storing the results of the first spectral analysis in a compressed form in order to reduce the storage space, wherein
- the results of several combinations of transmitting and receiving antenna have the same scaling for each range gate and frequency ramp and/or frequency ramp group,
- the values thus scaled are quantized to a lower bit number than that used in the signal processing and are stored with this reduced bit number, and
- these compressed values are decompressed again prior to the second spectral analysis.
11 more elements
A signal processing method for a radar system for covering the surroundings of a motor vehicle, the radar system including one or more transmitting antennas for the radiation of transmitting signals, one or more receiving antennas for the reception of transmitting signals reflected from objects, and a digital signal processing unit for processing the received signals, said method comprising:
- modulating the frequency of the radiated transmitting power such that the radiated transmitting power includes a sequence of a plurality of linear ramps of identical slope,
- acquiring the receiving signals of several combinations of transmitting and receiving antennas, by mixing with an oscillator signal and sampling for each frequency ramp in a parallel manner and/or over successive frequency ramps in each case, referred to as a frequency ramp group in a serial manner,
- performing a first spectral analysis with a discrete Fourier transform (DFT) in each case over the sampled values for each frequency ramp and for each of the respective combinations of transmitting and receiving antennas,
- storing the results of this first spectral analysis over the plurality of frequency ramps for at least a part of its frequency control points, which constitute range gates,
- performing a second spectral analysis with a DFT over the stored values for each range gate and for each combination of transmitting and receiving antennas over the frequency ramps and/or frequency ramp groups,
- processing the results of the second spectral analysis over the different combinations of transmitting and receiving antennas with the aid of digital beam shaping by a third DFT,
- storing the results of the first spectral analysis in a compressed form in order to reduce the storage space, wherein
- the results of several combinations of transmitting and receiving antenna have the same scaling for each range gate and frequency ramp and/or frequency ramp group,
- the values thus scaled are quantized to a lower bit number than that used in the spectral analyses and are stored with this reduced bit number, and
- these compressed values are decompressed again prior to the second spectral analysis.
7 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.