Imaging radar sensor with narrow antenna lobe and wide angle detection range

• US 9,817,110 B2
• Filed: 09/04/2012
• Issued: 11/14/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 09/09/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Cruise Munich GmbH (General Motors Company)
• Original Assignee: Astyx Gmbh (General Motors Company)
• Inventors: Koerber, Richard, Giere, Andre
• Primary Examiner(s): Bythrow, Peter
• Assistant Examiner(s): Risselin, Woodner T
• Application Number:
  US14/343,848
• Publication Number:
  US 20140340253A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,897 Days
• Field of Search: 342104
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 13/06 Systems determining position data of a target
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 13/34 using transmission of continuous, frequency-modulated waves while heterodyning the received signal, or a signal derived therefrom, with a locally-generated signal related to the contemporaneously transmitted signal
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 13/58 Velocity or trajectory determination systems; Sense-of-movement determination systems
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 13/931 of land vehicles
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 7/032 Constructional details for solid-state radar subsystems
• CPC Class Codes: H01Q 21/061 Two dimensional planar arrays

Abstract

The invention relates to a device for detecting objects within a sweep range, comprising at least two switchable transmitting antennas, a plurality of receiving antennas, the transmitting antennas and receiving antennas respectively extending longitudinally, parallel to one another, in a first direction, and the receiving antennas being arranged in a row and the row extending in a second direction, the receiving antennas and the transmitting antennas being arranged such that they produce a synthetic receiving antenna array for the beam sweep by means of the sequential activation of the transmitting antennas and the positions of the transmitting and receiving antennas, the resulting distance corresponding to the positions of the receiving antennas in the synthetic receiving antenna array in the second direction d, the adjacent receiving antennas in the device being spaced apart by a distance of d2 or greater and d2 being twice as great as distance d.

Claims

1. A device for determining the position of objects, comprising

at least two switchable transmitting antennas and a plurality of receiving antennas,

the transmitting antennas and receiving antennas respectively extending longitudinally, parallel to one another, in a first direction (y), and

the receiving antennas being arranged in a row and the row extending in a second direction (x), adjacent receiving antennas respectively being spaced apart from one another by a distance d2,

the transmitting antennas being offset from one another along the first direction (y) and along the second direction (x), and being spaced apart from one another by a distance d in relation to the second direction (x), and the distance d2 between adjacent receiving antennas being twice as great as the distance d between the transmitting antennas.

2. The device according to claim 1, the receiving antennas comprising two outer receiving antennas on respective ends of the row, and a plurality of inner receiving antennas positioned between the two receiving antennas,

adjacent inner receiving antennas respectively being spaced apart from one another by a distance d2 in the second direction, the two outer receiving antennas being spaced apart by a distance d2 or d3 in the second direction from a nearest receiving antenna, d being the distance between adjacent receiving antennas in a synthetically produced antenna array and d2 being at least twice as large as d and d3 being at least three times as large as d, the distance between the transmitting antennas in the second direction being the size of d or d3 in order to produce the synthetic antenna array.

3. The device according to claim 1, the number of receiving antennas used in a synthetic antenna array for beam forming being N, the receiving antennas receiving signals with a wavelength λ

, wherein

4. The device according to claim 1, wherein a first of the transmitting antennas is fed such that the feeding in takes place in a first feeding direction parallel to the first direction (y) and a second of the transmitting antennas is fed such that the feeding in takes place in a second feeding direction antiparallel to the first feeding direction, the distance between the transmitting antennas in the second direction being d.

5. The device according to claim 1, wherein the transmitting antennas are fed such that the feeding in takes place in the second direction (x).

6. The device according to claim 1, the second direction (x) being perpendicular to the first direction (y).

7. The device according to claim 1, comprising a frequency generator for producing signals which are issued by a first of the transmitting antennas in a first cycle and by a second of the transmitting antennas in a second cycle following the latter chronologically.

8. The device according to claim 1, wherein the device comprises at least 8 receiving antennas, or includes exactly 4 receiving antennas.

9. The device according to claim 1, comprising a display device configured to present data output on a position of the object.

10. A method for sweeping the beam of a radar sensor into sweep angles, comprising the procedural steps:

sequentially operating two transmitting antennas offset from one another along a first direction (y) and along a second direction (x),

receiving the reflected signals using a receiving antenna array,

digitalizing the received signals,

overlapping an arrangement of the received signals to form a synthetic array,

combining the received signals to form a bundled antenna beam by a digital beam forming method,

performing a speed correction, wherein the speed correction is derived from a temporal offset between the two transmitted signals and from a speed filtering comprising a comparison of output signals of overlapping lines of antennas corresponding to the bundled antenna beam using a two-dimensional FFT,

wherein the receiving antenna array comprises a plurality of receiving antennas arranged in a row, the row extending in the second direction (x), and

wherein the transmitting antennas are spaced apart from one another by a distance d in relation to the second direction (x), and the distance d2 between adjacent receiving antennas being twice as great as the distance d between the transmitting antennas.

11. The method according to claim 10, wherein the speed correction is further derived from the temporal offset between the two transmitted signals, and from a speed filtering comprising a comparison of output signals of two received signals using a two-dimensional FFT.