Beacon system in an autonomous vehicle radar for vehicle identification

A radar system in an ego vehicle, comprising:

• a beacon system configured to generate a superimposed signal from a radar signal and a beacon signal, wherein the superimposed signal comprises vehicle identification information that identifies the ego vehicle;
• a meta-structure antenna module comprising one or more meta-structure antennas that are configured to radiate dynamically controllable Radio Frequency (“RF”) beams to a surrounding environment of the ego vehicle, the dynamically controllable RF beams containing the superimposed signal;
• and
• a perception module configured to detect and identify a target in the surrounding environment of the ego vehicle using one or more return RF beams reflected from the target based at least on the radiated dynamically controllable RF beams.

A method for operating a radar system in an autonomous driving system of an ego vehicle, the method comprising:

• superimposing a beacon signal with a radar transmission signal to generate a superimposed signal;
• sending the superimposed signal to a metamaterial antenna structure;
• and
• directing the metamaterial antenna structure to radiate one or more Radio Frequency (“RF”) beams containing the superimposed signal.