G01S7/4056

Detection, Mitigation And Avoidance Of Mutual Interference Between Automotive Radars
20200393536 · 2020-12-17 ·

A novel and useful radar sensor incorporating detection, mitigation and avoidance of mutual interference from nearby automotive radars. The normally constant start frequency sequence for linear large bandwidth FMCW chirps is replaced by a sequence of lower bandwidth chirps with start frequencies spanning the wider bandwidth and randomly ordered in time to create a pseudo random chirp hopping sequence. The reflected wave signal received is reassembled using the known hop sequence. To mitigate interference, the signal received is used to estimate collisions with other radar signals. If detected, a constraint is applied to the randomization of the chirps. The chirp hopping sequence is altered so chirps do not interfere with the interfering radar's chirps. Offending chirps are re-randomized, dropped altogether or the starting frequency of another non-offending chirp is reused. Windowed blanking is used to zero the portion of the received chirp corrupted with the interfering radar's chirp signal.

Radar front end with RF oscillator monitoring

An apparatus is described that, according to an exemplary embodiment, has an RF oscillator for generating an RF oscillator signal at a first frequency and a frequency divider having a division ratio that is fixed during operation. The frequency divider is supplied with the RF oscillator signal and is configured to provide an oscillator signal at a second frequency. The apparatus further has a monitor circuit, to which the oscillator signal at the second frequency is supplied and which is configured to measure the second frequency and to provide at least one digital value that is dependent on the second frequency of the oscillator signal. The at least one digital value is provided on a test contact.

MULTI-CHIP TRANSCEIVER TESTING IN A RADAR SYSTEM

A radar system is provided that includes a first radar transceiver integrated circuit (IC) including transmission signal generation circuitry operable to generate a continuous wave signal and a first transmit channel coupled to the transmission generation circuitry to receive the continuous wave signal and transmit a test signal based on the continuous wave signal, and a second radar transceiver IC including a first receive channel coupled to an output of the first transmit channel of the first radar transceiver IC via a loopback path to receive the test signal from first the transmit channel, the second radar transceiver IC operable to measure phase response in the test signal.

METHODS AND APPARATUS TO TEST RADAR INTEGRATED CIRCUITS

Methods, apparatus, systems and articles of manufacture are disclosed to test RADAR integrated circuits. A radar circuit comprising a local oscillator (LO), a transmitter coupled to the LO and configured to be coupled to a transmission network, a receiver configured to be coupled to the transmission network, and a controller coupled to the LO, the transmitter, and the receiver, the controller to cause the LO to generate a frequency modulated continuous waveform (FMCW), cause the transmitter to modulate the FMCW as a modulated FMCW, cause the transmitter to transmit the modulated FMCW via the transmission network and the receiver to obtain a received FMCW from the transmission network, and in response to obtaining the received FMCW from the receiver, generate a performance characteristic of the radar circuit based on the received FMCW.

TRANSMISSION PHASE MEASUREMENT AND CALIBRATION METHOD UTILIZING HIGHER-ORDER FREQUENCY BINS

A circuit includes a transmission channel that outputs a continuous-wave signal based on a reference signal, a transmit monitoring signal path that couples out a portion of the transmit signal as a monitoring signal, a test phase shifter that receives the reference signal and generates a phase-shifted signal based on a sequence of phase offsets applied to the reference signal, a phase mixer that mixes the phase-shifted signal and the monitoring signal to generate a mixer output signal including a plurality of direct current (DC) values, an analog-to-digital converter that samples the mixer output signal in order to provide a sequence of DC values; and a monitor circuit that applies a discrete Fourier transform (DFT) to the sequence of DC values to generate a plurality of DFT bins with corresponding DFT bin values, and generate compensated phase information of the transmission channel using at least two DFT bin values.

Frequency-modulated continuous-wave (FMCW)

A frequency-modulated continuous-wave (FMCW) radar system for level or distance measurement in which a frequency modulated signal to be transmitted to a target is mixed with an echo signal from the target to produce a beat signal that passes through an analog filter before being digitized and processed in a digital processor to determine the level or distance to be measured, where a test signal is generated by a signal generator, and a switch is controlled to connect the beat signal or the test signal to the analog filter, the signal generator generates the test signal as a broadband signal having a periodic waveform, e.g., a square wave, and the digital processor calculates a spectrum of the digitized filtered test signal by Fast Fourier Transform and generates a fault signal if the spectrum differs from a reference spectrum by a predetermined amount to allow for failure detection.

CALIBRATION DEVICE OF AUTOMOBILE ASSISTANCE SYSTEM
20200363504 · 2020-11-19 ·

The present invention relates to the technical field of automobile maintenance and device calibration, and discloses a calibration device of an automobile assistance system, the radar calibration device including a support assembly, a beam assembly, and a sliding member. The beam assembly is mounted to the support assembly and may move relative to the support assembly along a vertical direction. The sliding member is mounted to the beam assembly and may move relative to the beam assembly along a horizontal direction. The calibration device of the automobile assistance system may cause a simulator to be mounted on the sliding member that may slide horizontally from left to right, so that the simulator can slide continuously from left to right, radar for blind areas at a left rear and a right rear of the automobile are conveniently and rapidly calibrated, and consistency of parameters such as a height and an angle of the calibration device of an automobile assistance system can be ensured, achieving a convenient and more accurate calibration operation.

METHOD FOR DETECTING POTENTIAL FAULTY STATES ON AN FMCW-BASED FILLING LEVEL MEASURING APPARATUS
20200363521 · 2020-11-19 ·

Disclosed is a method for detecting a faulty state of an FMCW-based fill level measuring device. For this, a correlation coefficient is ascertained by correlation, especially cross correlation, of the measurement signal with a reference signal. The faulty state is accordingly detected when the correlation coefficient subceeds a predefined minimum value. In this way, the functioning of the fill level measuring device can be monitored with a degree of safety allowing the fill level measuring device to be applied also in process plants and measuring environments, which require extremely reliable measuring apparatuses, and measurement data.

SIGNAL PROCESSING DEVICE, RADAR DEVICE AND SIGNAL PROCESSING METHOD
20200363522 · 2020-11-19 · ·

A signal processing device, includes: an azimuth estimation unit configured to estimate an arrival azimuth of a radio wave based on a reception signal of plural antennas; an estimated reception signal calculation unit configured to calculate an estimated reception signal based on an estimation result of the arrival azimuth, for comparison with the reception signal; a residual signal calculation unit configured to calculate a residual signal which is a difference between the reception signal and the estimated reception signal; and a determination unit configured to determine whether the estimation result of the arrival azimuth is correct based on the residual signal.

SWITCHABLE FMCW/PMCW RADAR TRANSCEIVER
20200341108 · 2020-10-29 · ·

Automotive radar methods and systems for enhancing resistance to interference using a built-in self-test (BIST) module. In one illustrative embodiment, an automotive radar transceiver includes: a signal generator that generates a transmit signal; a modulator that derives a modulated signal from the transmit signal using at least one of phase and amplitude modulation; at least one receiver that mixes the transmit signal with a receive signal to produce a down-converted signal, the receive signal including the modulated signal during a built-in self-test (BIST) mode of operation; and at least one transmitter that drives a radar antenna with a selectable one of the transmit signal and the modulated signal.