Radar Scene Classification with Feature Pooling for Reflective Environments

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Solution Overview

Problem

Existing radar-based environment perception systems in vehicles struggle to accurately identify the scene due to the influence of reflecting surfaces, leading to performance issues in environments like parking garages and tunnels, and existing algorithms provide inconsistent performance across different scenes.

Innovation Solution

A scene classification method using radar data that processes feature maps through longitudinal and lateral feature pooling, generating inner products for classification, leveraging vehicle-centric awareness to enhance precision and recall, and incorporating a Radar Deep Object Recognition network (RaDOR.net) for efficient scene categorization.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Reliability

If traditional detection-based methods or machine learning algorithms are used for radar-based environment perception, then object detection and free-space estimation can be achieved, but performance significantly deteriorates in scenes with many reflecting surfaces such as parking garages and tunnels

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvedetection performanceVSAvoidperformance consistency across different scenes
Core Design Contradiction:
ReliabilityVSAdaptability or versatility

Solution Approach 1:

The system dynamically adapts its processing based on scene classification. Different algorithms and models are selected depending on the detected scene type, allowing the system to optimize performance for each specific environment rather than using a fixed approach that degrades in challenging scenes like parking garages and tunnels

Inventive Principle:
Principle #15Dynamics

Solution Approach 2:

System parameters such as detection thresholds, fusion settings, and algorithm configurations are adjusted based on the classified scene. This enables the radar perception system to maintain high reliability across varying environmental conditions by changing operational parameters according to the specific scene characteristics

Inventive Principle:
Principle #35Parameter changes

2Measurement precision

If complex deep learning models are used for scene classification, then classification accuracy may improve, but computational complexity and processing time increase

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvescene classification accuracyVSAvoidcomputational architecture complexity
Core Design Contradiction:
Measurement precisionVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

The scene classification task is segmented into distinct processing stages: feature extraction from radar data, feature pooling to generate compact representations, inner product computation, and final classification. This segmentation allows each stage to be optimized independently, achieving high accuracy without requiring a monolithic complex model

Inventive Principle:
Principle #1Segmentation

Solution Approach 2:

The invention extracts only the most relevant features from radar data through selective feature pooling operations, rather than processing all raw data through complex models. This extraction approach maintains classification precision while significantly reducing computational complexity by focusing on discriminative features only

Inventive Principle:
Principle #2Taking out (Extraction)

3Productivity

If feature pooling operations are applied to reduce dimensionality, then computational efficiency improves, but information loss may occur affecting classification specificity

Engineering Contradiction:
Improveprocessing efficiencyVSAvoidscene feature information
Core Design Contradiction:
ProductivityVSLoss of information

Solution Approach 1:

The feature pooling operations transform the feature space by aggregating information across spatial dimensions while preserving channel dimensions. This dimensional transformation reduces computational load by creating compact feature pool outputs, yet maintains classification specificity by retaining discriminative information in the transformed feature space through subsequent inner product operations

Inventive Principle:
Principle #17Another dimension (Dimensionality change)

Data Source

PatentEP4258009B1Scene classification method, apparatus and computer program product
Publication Date: 2025.09.03 APTIV TECHNOLOGIES AG
  • EP4258009B1 patent drawingFigure 1~2
  • EP4258009B1 patent drawingFigure 3
  • EP4258009B1 patent drawingFigure 4

AI summary

Scene classification method and apparatus for a vehicle sensor system. Feature maps (22) generated from sensor data provided by the vehicle sensor system are received at an input. The feature maps (22) are processed using longitudinal and lateral feature pooling (23,26) to generate longitudinal and lateral feature pool outputs. Inner products (24) are then generated from the longitudinal and lateral feature pool outputs. The scene is then classified based on the generated inner products.