Lateral-bin monitoring for radar target detection

An apparatus comprising:

• a radar system comprising:
• at least one antenna array;
• a transceiver coupled to the at least one antenna array, the transceiver configured to transmit and receive a radar signal using the antenna array, the radar signal propagating through at least a portion of a region of interest, the radar signal comprising multiple frames;
• and
• a processor coupled to the transceiver, the processor configured to:
• define the region of interest, the region of interest being on at least one side of the apparatus, the region of interest comprising a plurality of lateral bins having lengths that span at least a portion of the at least one side of the apparatus;
• monitor a quantity of consecutive frames of the multiple frames that have detections located within at least one lateral bin of the plurality of lateral bins, the detections determined from the received radar signal;
• and
• determine that at least one object is present within the at least one lateral bin responsive to the quantity of consecutive frames with detections being greater than or equal to a threshold.

Computer-readable storage media comprising computer-executable instructions that, responsive to execution by a processor, implement:

• a lateral-bin monitoring module configured to:
• accept multiple radar data cubes respectively associated with multiple frames of a radar receive signal;
• monitor quantities of consecutive frames having detections located within respective lateral bins, the detections determined based on the multiple radar data cubes, the quantities of consecutive frames comprising a particular quantity of consecutive frames having detections located within a particular lateral bin of the respective lateral bins;
• and
• determine that at least one object is present within the particular lateral bin responsive to the particular quantity of consecutive frames with detections being greater than or equal to a threshold.