Calculating velocity of an autonomous vehicle using radar technology

An article of manufacture including a non-transitory computer-readable medium having stored thereon instructions that, when executed by a processor in a computing system, causes the computing system to perform operations comprising:

• while an autonomous vehicle is moving on a road, receiving, from at least one radar sensor, radar data representative of a physical environment of the autonomous vehicle;
• based on the radar data, detecting at least one scatterer present in the environment;
• and
• based on a determination of a likelihood that the at least one scatterer is stationary with respect to the autonomous vehicle:
• calculating a velocity of the autonomous vehicle using at least a portion of the radar data from the at least one radar sensor that represents the at least one scatterer, and
• controlling the autonomous vehicle based on the calculated velocity of the autonomous vehicle.

A computing system configured to control an autonomous vehicle, the computing system comprising:

• at least one radar sensor;
• a processor configured to perform operations comprising:
• while the autonomous vehicle is moving on a road, receiving, from the at least one radar sensor, radar data representative of a physical environment of the autonomous vehicle;
• based on the radar data, detecting at least one scatterer present in the environment;
• and
• based on a determination of a likelihood that the at least one scatterer is stationary with respect to the autonomous vehicle:
• calculating a velocity of the autonomous vehicle using at least a portion of the radar data from the at least one radar sensor that represents the at least one scatterer, and
• controlling the autonomous vehicle based on the calculated velocity of the autonomous vehicle.