Synthetic aperture radar transmit and receive antenna systems and methods of transmitting and receiving radar signals are disclosed. In one embodiment, a transmit and receive antenna system includes a transmit antenna array configured to transmit a plurality of radio frequency transmit signals, the transmit antenna array including a plurality of patch antenna elements mounted to a printed circuit board, each patch antenna element belonging to a subarray, and one or more power amplifiers, each power amplifier feeding a subarray of the patch antenna elements, and a reflectarray receive antenna configured to receive radio frequency signals including a plurality of reflectarray antenna elements mounted to a printed circuit board, at least one antenna feed configured to receive radio frequency signals reflected from the plurality of reflectarray antenna elements, and at least one low noise amplifier electrically connected to the at least one antenna feed.

Methods for acquiring information regarding terrain and/or objects within a target volume using wireless networks (spatial imaging), providing an estimate of local signal reflectivity within the target volume (local estimated signal), some of which comprise: receiving signals transmitted by one or more nodes of wireless networks using one or more receiving units (node signal receivers (30)), wherein the transmitted signals are node signals (20) and the signals received after traversing a medium (21) are node resultant signals (22), and wherein each of the one or more node signal receivers (30) is configured to receive signals associated with one or more transmitting nodes of wireless networks (transmitting subject network nodes (11)); and for at least one of the one or more node signal receivers (30), for at least one of the associated one or more transmitting subject network nodes (11), generating an initial version of the local estimated signal (bi-static local estimated signal), using the following processing steps: (a) apply matched filtering between the node resultant signal received by the current node signal receiver and the waveform of the current transmitting subject network node, wherein the output of the matched filtering (matched node resultant signal) is provided as a function of time, wherein time is correlated to a bi-static range with respect to the current node signal receiver and the current transmitting subject network node; (b) for one or more spatial locations within the target volume (60), compute the bi-static range with respect to the current node signal receiver and the current transmitting subject network node (bi-static distance), wherein the spatial location of each of the current node signal receiver and the current transmitting subject network node is known, measured, or estimated; and (c) for each of the one or more spatial locations within the target volume (60), determine the bi-static local estimated signal based on the value of the matched node resultant signal at the bi-static distance corresponding to the current spatial location.

A beacon (110) for a ranging system includes an electronic scanned array (ESA) antenna and a transceiver. The ESA antenna is configured to emit a separate radio frequency (RF) phased-array narrow beam (140) for each of a plurality of segments of an arc, and receive from an end user node (130) a response signal based on at least one of the RF phased-array narrow beam (140). Each segment of the arc is scanned at a specified time interval. The transceiver is configured to transmit a pulsed signal via the RF phased-array narrow beam (140), and receive the response signal.

A method may include receiving radar data from a plurality of TX-RX pairs (TRPs); generating a plurality of first ellipses representing a first portion of the received radar data; determining a blocking likelihood at a point of intersection between the plurality of first ellipses; generating a new or additional ellipse representing a second portion of the received radar data; and updating, based on generating the new or additional ellipse, the blocking likelihood at the point of intersection between the first plurality of ellipses.

A hand tool device comprises a computation unit and at least one locating device that is configured to receive a locating signal having a circularly polarized component. The computation unit is configured to ascertain a piece of position information of a locatable object from the circularly polarized part of the locating signal.

A proximity sensor for measuring the distance from a target contains a microwave oscillator providing a transmission wave output signal emitted toward the target as a free space transmission wave which is reflected by an electrically conductive target surface as a free space reflection wave received by the proximity sensor as a reflection wave. The distance is determined from the transmission wave and the reflection wave. The transmission wave is guided in a waveguide transmission path as a waveguide transmission wave. The transmission wave is coupled into the waveguide with a wave mode leading to the detachment of the waveguide transmission wave at the waveguide front end aperture into the free space transmission wave and to the propagation of the free space transmission wave to the target. At least one reception path is electromagnetically decoupled from the transmission path and guides the reflection wave as a waveguide reflection wave.

A sensor assembly for detecting an object is disclosed. The sensor assembly includes at least one radar transmitter configured to emit transmitted radar waves having a first polarization. The sensor assembly also includes at least one radar receiver configured to receive the transmitted radar waves after reflecting from the object as reflected radar waves having a second polarization different than the first polarization and corresponding with a detection of the object relative to the sensor assembly. The at least one radar receiver is additionally configured to reject radar waves having a polarization being different than the second polarization to disregard noise generated by environmental interaction of the transmitted radar waves and from extraneous radar sources.

In some examples, a radar device is configured to detect an object, where the radar device includes transceiver circuitry configured to transmit radar signals having a first polarization type towards the object, receive radar signals having the first polarization type reflected from the object, and receive radar signals having a second polarization type reflected from the object, the second polarization type being different than the first polarization type. The radar device also includes processing circuitry configured to determine a material category of the object based on the radar signals having the first polarization type reflected from the object and the radar signals having the second polarization type reflected from the object.

A vehicle, radar system for the vehicle and method for detecting an object. The radar system includes a transmitter, a receiver and a processor. The transmitter is configured to generate elliptically-polarized signals having a transmission polarization sense. The receiver configured to be receptive to signals having a reception polarization sense opposite the transmission polarization sense, thereby filtering multiply-reflected signals. The processor operates the transmitter to generate a source signal and operates the receiver to receive a reflection of the source signal from the object. The processor detects the object from the received reflection.

A vehicle, radar system and a method of detecting an object. The radar system includes a transmitter, a receiver and a processor. The transmitter generates a transmitted signal having a non-linear polarization. The receiver receives a received signal that is a reflection of the transmitted signal from the object. The processor adjusts a phase of the transmitted signal at the transmitter to obtain a selected power of the received signal at the receiver.