RADAR APPARATUS SUPPORTING SHORT AND LONG RANGE RADAR OPERATION

• US 20120235857A1
• Filed: 03/15/2012
• Published: 09/20/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 03/16/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Intellectual Discovery Co., Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute
• Inventors: KIM, Cheon Soo, Park, Pil Jae, Park, Min, Park, Kyung Hwan, Kim, Dong-Young, Koo, Bon Tae, Yu, Hyun Kyu, Kim, Jeong-Geun
• Granted Patent: US 8,902,103 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 342/134
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 13/345 using triangular modulation
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 13/931 of land vehicles
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 2013/0254 Active array antenna
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 7/358 using I/Q processing

Abstract

Disclosed is a radar apparatus supporting short range and long range radar operations, wherein a plurality of short range transmitting chirp signals and a plurality of long range transmitting chirp signals are generated by a predetermined modulation scheme and is transmitted to an object through at least one transmitting array antenna and signals reflected from the object is received through at least one receiving array antenna, and the plurality of long range transmitting chirp signals have transmission power larger than that for the plurality of short range transmitting chirp signals.

Claims

1. A radar apparatus supporting long range and short range radar operations, wherein a plurality of long range transmitting chirp signals and a plurality of short range transmitting chirp signals are generated by a predetermined modulation scheme and is transmitted to an object through at least one transmitting array antenna and signals reflected from the object is received through at least one receiving array antenna, and

the plurality of long range transmitting chirp signals have transmission power larger than that for the plurality of short range transmitting chirp signals.

2. The radar apparatus of claim 1, wherein at the time of sensing the long range a longer detection range and a narrower detection angle are obtained and better resolution for the detection angle is obtained than at the time of sensing the short range, and at the time of sensing the short range a shorter detection range and a wider detection angle are obtained and better resolution for the detection range is obtained than at the time of sensing the long range.

3. The radar apparatus of claim 1, wherein the predetermined modulation scheme adopts at least one frequency modulated continuous-wave (FMCW) modulation scheme for detecting multi targets.

4. The radar apparatus of claim 1, wherein the plurality of long range transmitting chirp signals and the plurality of short range transmitting chirp signals include a plurality of chirp signals having different slopes of frequency with respect to time, respectively, for detecting multi targets.

5. The radar apparatus of claim 4, wherein the plurality of long range transmitting chirp signals include at least six chirp signals having different slopes of frequency with respect to time, and

the plurality of short range transmitting chirp signals include at least four chirp signals having different slopes of frequency with respect to time.

6. The radar apparatus of claim 1, wherein the radar apparatus comprises:

an antenna unit configured to include the at least one transmitting array antenna and the at least one receiving array antenna;

a transmitter configured to generate the plurality of long range transmitting chirp signals and the plurality of short range transmitting chirp signals by a frequency modulated continuous-wave (FMCW) modulation scheme and transmit the generated chirp signals through the at least one transmitting array antenna;

a receiver configured to process the reflected signal received through the at least one receiving array antenna; and

a signal processing processor configured to generate control signals for generating the plurality of short range transmitting chirp signals and the plurality of long term transmitting chirp signals and process the signals processed through the receiver.

7. The radar apparatus of claim 6, wherein the transmitter includes at least two power amplifiers configured to differently output the transmission power for the plurality of long range transmitting chirp signals and the transmission power for the plurality of short range transmitting chirp signals.

8. The radar apparatus of claim 7, wherein the power amplifier varies the transmitting power into two-stage or more according to an operating mode in order to control the detection range.

9. The radar apparatus of claim 6, wherein the transmitter includes:

a frequency synthesizer configured to synthesize a frequency based on the control signals;

an oscillator configured to receive an output of the frequency synthesizer to generate a carrier signal;

a frequency multiplier configured to perform frequency multiplication on the output signal of the oscillator;

a driver configured to drive an signal of the frequency multiplier; and

at least two power amplifier configured to amplify the output signal of the driver to differently output the transmission power for the plurality of short range transmitting chirp signals and the transmission power for the plurality of long range transmitting chirp signals.

10. The radar apparatus of claim 9, wherein the at least two power amplifiers are variable gain amplifiers.

11. The radar apparatus of claim 6, wherein the receiver includes a plurality of receiving units, and

each of the receiving units includes:

a low noise amplifier configured to amplify the received reflected wave signal;

a down converting mixer configured to remove carrier component from an output of the low noise amplifier; and

a filter configured to remove noise from an output of the down converting mixer.

12. The radar apparatus of claim 6, wherein the transmitter and the receiver is implemented on a single chip by a CMOS technology.

13. The radar apparatus of claim 6, wherein the transmitter, the receiver and the signal processing processor are implemented on three chips of a transmitting chip, a receiving chip and a signal processing unit chip, two chips of a transmitting and receiving chip and a signal processing unit chip, or a single chip on which the transmitting and receiving chip and the signal processing unit chip are integrated by the CMOS technology.

14. The radar apparatus of claim 1, wherein the at least one transmitting and receiving array antennas are fabricated on a low temperature co-fired ceramics (LTCC) substrate so as to be miniaturized.

15. The radar apparatus of claim 1, wherein the at least one receiving array antenna is a plurality of phase array antennas that detect an azimuth angle of the object.