Method for determining at least one parameter for the purpose of correlating two objects

Abstract

A method for determining at least one parameter for the purpose of correlating two objects (10, 20), particularly the distance (r) and/or the relative speed (v) of the two objects (10, 20). A plurality of transmission pulse sequences following one after the after, each with at least one transmission pulse of an electromagnetic signal, forms a series of transmission pulse sequences. The duration of transmission of the individual transmission pulses is varied from transmission pulse sequence to transmission pulse sequence in order to reduce the susceptibility to interference in the determination of the at least one parameter.

Claims

1. A method for determining at least one parameter for the purpose of correlating two objects, and particularly at least one of the distance, the relative speed, and relative angles of the two objects comprising the steps of: forming a series of transmission pulse sequences in which a plurality of transmission pulse sequences follow one after the after, each with at least one transmission pulse of an electromagnetic signal, varying the duration of transmission of the individual transmission pulses from transmission pulse sequence to transmission pulse sequence by addition of a varied additional duration to a fixed base duration in order to reduce the susceptibility to interference in the determination of the at least one parameter, wherein each transmission pulse within a given transmission pulse sequence has the same duration of transmission.

2. The method according to claim 1, wherein each transmission pulse sequence has the same number of transmission pulses.

3. The method according to claim 1, wherein each transmission pulse sequence has at least two transmission pulses.

4. The method according to claim 1, wherein the additional duration is varied by means of a random generator.

5. The method according to claim 1, wherein the additional duration is varied between prespecified boundaries.

6. The method according to claim 1, wherein the manner of the variation of the duration of transmission of the individual transmission pulses is changed after a plurality of series of transmission sequences.

7. The method according to claim 1, wherein the variation of the duration of transmission is produced by a variation of a sampling rate for the individual transmission pulses.

8. The method according to claim 1, wherein the variation of the duration of transmission is produced by a variation of a switch converter frequency for the series of transmission pulse sequences.

Description

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

(1) Reference is now made more particularly to the drawings, which illustrate the best presently known mode of carrying out the invention and wherein similar reference characters indicate the same parts throughout the views. The terms left, right, above and below used herein refer to the orientation of the drawings where the reference numbers can be read normally.

(2) FIG. 1 shows an illustration of a series of transmission pulse sequences, and

(3) FIG. 2 shows a top view of a driving situation with the use of a method according to the invention.

(4) FIG. 1 illustrates an embodiment of a method according to the invention. In this case, a first transmission pulse sequence F is transmitted, and consists of three individual transmission pulses A.sub.1, B.sub.1 and C.sub.1. This transmission pulse sequence is continually repeated, although in FIG. 1 only the first repetition is shown, with the individual transmission pulses A.sub.2, B.sub.2 and C.sub.2. The individual transmission pulse sequences F add together to make a series R of transmission pulse sequences F.

(5) In the context of the present invention, the method according to the invention serves the purpose of modifying the individual transmission pulse sequences with respect to each other, by modifying the duration of transmission of the transmission pulses. By way of example, in the first transmission pulse sequence F, the individual durations of transmission are indicated with T.sub.a as the base duration for all transmission pulse sequences, and are the same for all transmission pulses. However, added to each of the base durations T.sub.a inside the first transmission pulse sequence F is one additional duration dt.sub.1. In the second transmission pulse sequence F, a second additional duration dt.sub.2 is added. The additional durations dt.sub.1 and dt.sub.2 are different from each other. They are particularly generated by the use of a prespecified variation profile and/or by the use of a random generator. As a result, the individual durations of transmission of the individual transmission pulses inside a transmission sequence F are identical, but differ from each other over the transmission pulse sequences as a whole. As such, noise and/or blur is produced, and thereby interference peaks in the form of singularly arising sources of interference in the analysis of the frequency band likewise become noisy, and can no longer trigger a false alarm.

(6) FIG. 2 shows a situation in which a method according to the invention can be used for two objects 10 and 20. A first object 10 is a vehicle, by way of example, which is equipped with a monitoring device for the adjacent lane. For this purpose, a device 100 is included which is also set up to carry out the method according to the invention. To do this, electromagnetic signals are emitted. These are illustrated schematically in FIG. 2 in the form of individual transmission pulse sequences, as small dashes leaving the device 100. In the first object 10, an analysis of the distance r and/or the speed v of the second object 20 is carried out using the reflection and the analysis of these individual transmission pulses. In this case, these are particularly the relative distance and the relative speed between the two objects 10 and 20. A source of interference 30, illustrated schematically, is positioned next to the road surface. This can be the transmission tower of a cellular network, for example. This transmission tower as a source of interference 30 would lead, in devices 100 according to the prior art, to the fact that an individual peak can potentially produce a false response, even though there is not any second object 20 in the lane adjacent to the first object 10. With a method according to the invention, added noise in the results is used to achieve a state where this interference peak likewise blurs, and no false response is possible. The acceptance of such a system and/or such a device 100 is significantly higher, because false alarms can be largely ruled out for the driver.

(7) The above description of the embodiments only discusses the present invention in the context of examples. Naturally, the features and details of embodiments can be freely combined with each other, to the extent this is technically reasonable, without departing from the scope of the present invention.

LIST OF REFERENCE NUMBERS

(8) 10 first object 20 second object 30 source of interference 100 device r distance v relative speed A transmission pulse B transmission pulse C transmission pulse F transmission pulse sequence R series of transmission pulse sequences dt additional duration T base duration