Method and system for compressive array processing

• US 9,389,305 B2
• Filed: 02/27/2013
• Issued: 07/12/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 02/27/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories, Inc. (Mitsubishi Electric Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories, Inc. (Mitsubishi Electric Corporation)
• Inventors: Boufounos, Petros T
• Primary Examiner(s): Gregory, Bernarr
• Application Number:
  US13/778,704
• Publication Number:
  US 20140240163A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,231 Days
• Field of Search: 342/27, 342/28, 342/73, 342/74, 342/81, 342368-377, 342/25.R, 342/175, 342/195, 343/700.R, 343/705, 367/87, 367/95, 367/97, 600/300, 600/407, 600/437, 600/440, 600/441, 600/443, 600/447
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 13/04 Systems determining presence of a target based on relative movement of target G01S13/56
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 13/42 Simultaneous measurement of distance and other co-ordinates indirect measurement G01S13/46
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 7/03 Details of HF subsystems specially adapted therefor, e.g. common to transmitter and receiver
• CPC Class Codes: H01Q 3/24 varying the orientation by switching energy from one active radiating element to another, e.g. for beam switching

Abstract

Signals received by an array of sensing elements are processed by first positioning the sensing elements in a uniform grid of L locations, wherein each location to include or not to include a sensing element is selected during a design phase. The sensing elements are selected and grouped into subsets, wherein each subset contains one or more sensing elements, and each sensing element is a member of one or more subsets. The signals in each subset are linearly combined to produce a combined signal, which is then sampled to form an output channel, which can detect objects.

Claims

1. A method for processing signals comprising:

positioning sensing elements of a sensor array in a uniform grid of L locations, wherein each sensing element is an antenna, wherein the sensing elements are grouped into M subsets wherein each subset contains one or more sensing elements, and each sensing element is a member of one or more subsets, and wherein the uniform grid has a spacing less than or equal to half a wavelength of the signals received by the sensor array;

receiving the signals using the sensing elements of the sensor array;

combining, in a combiner, the signals received by the sensing elements in each subset to produce combined signals; and

sampling, in analog-to-digital converter, each combined signal to form an output channel.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the method further comprises:

processing the output channel of each combined signal.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the processing uses compressive sensing.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the compressive sensing uses a model that requires non-zero elements of a reconstructed signal to be more than a beamwidth apart.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the processing performs detection of objects.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the sensor array is planar.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the combining is performed in an analog domain.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the combining is linear and uses combination coefficients that are only ±

1.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the combining performs a linear combination.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the combining is linear and uses coefficients that are randomly selected from ±

1.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the sensing elements are grouped randomly to produce M subsets each including one or more sensing elements.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein the grouping sequentially groups the sensing elements into the M subsets.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the subsets include ┌

L/M┐

or └

L/M┘

sensing elements, and such that each sensing element is a member of only one subset.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein the grouping randomly groups multiple sensing elements in multiple subsets such that each sensing element is a member of each subset with a fixed probability, and each subset contains multiple sensing elements.