RADAR DEVICE

• US 20080150795A1
• Filed: 04/04/2007
• Published: 06/26/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 12/25/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Mitsubishi Electric Corporation
• Original Assignee: Mitsubishi Electric Corporation
• Inventors: Mitsumoto, Masashi, Wakayama, Toshio
• Granted Patent: US 7,511,659 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 342/196
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 13/42 Simultaneous measurement of distance and other co-ordinates indirect measurement G01S13/46
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 2013/0263 Passive array antenna
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 7/2813 Means providing a modification of the radiation pattern for cancelling noise, clutter or interfering signals, e.g. side lobe suppression, side lobe blanking, null-steering arrays specially adapted to secondary radar systems G01S13/762; aerials or aerials systems H01Q21/29, H01Q25/00
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 7/35 Details of non-pulse systems

Abstract

To provide a radar device which employs fast Fourier transform in a beam combining process to reduce the operation amount, the radar device including: a Fourier transform section that extracts a received signal that is obtained from waves radiated from a same transmitting element and received by a receiving element, and subjects a signal series of the extracted received signal to Fourier transform to generate a signal of a spatial frequency domain; a phase compensation section that compensates the signal of the spatial frequency domain with a phase difference that is caused by a difference between a predetermined reference position and a position of the used transmitting element; and a coherent integration section that adds the signals of the spatial frequency domain after the signals have been subjected to the phase compensation processing, which are obtained with the plurality of transmitting elements, in each of the spatial frequencies.

Claims

1. A radar device having:

a plurality of transmitting elements that are disposed at different positions, switched over, and radiate waves toward a space;

at least one receiving element that receives the waves scattered by an object which exists externally; and

receivers that detect the waves that are received by the receiving element and generate a received signal, the radar device that subjects the received signal to signal processing to measure the object, comprising;

a Fourier transform section that extracts the received signal that is obtained from the waves radiated from the same transmitting element and received by the receiving element, and subjects a signal series of the extracted received signal to Fourier transform to generate a signal of a spatial frequency domain;

a phase compensation section that compensates the signal of the spatial frequency domain that is generated by the Fourier transform section with a phase difference that is caused by a difference between a predetermined reference position and a position of the used transmitting element; and

a coherent integration section that adds the signals of the spatial frequency domain after the signals have been subjected to the phase compensation processing, which are obtained with the plurality of transmitting elements, in each of the spatial frequencies.

2. The radar device according to claim 1, wherein the phase compensation section compensates the signal of the spatial frequency domain which is generated by the Fourier transform section with a phase difference that is caused by a difference in wave radiation time between the transmitting elements.

3. The radar device according to claim 1, wherein the Fourier transform section subjects the received signal to the fast Fourier transform to generate the signal of the spatial frequency domain.

4. The radar device according to claim 1, wherein the Fourier transform section inserts a predetermined signal series to the signal series of the extracted received signal, and then subjects the signal series of the received signal to the Fourier transform.

5. The radar device according to claim 4, wherein the predetermined signal series is a signal series consisting of 0.

6. The radar device according to claim 1, wherein the Fourier transform section conducts the Fourier transform in an element direction and in a temporal direction.